Reaching Hands
by AelysAlthea
Summary: It had always been Steve and Bucky. Always one for the other, and always in an effort to support. From the struggle of an impoverished childhood to the trials of an adult war, t had always been. And it always would be. When they were children, some days Bucky had been all that kept Steve afloat. Years and a century later, it was Steve's chance to return the favour.
1. Chapter 1 - Away

**Summary** : It had always been Steve and Bucky. Always one for the other, and always in an effort to support. From the struggle of an impoverished childhood to the trials of an adult war, t had always been. And it always would be.

When they were children, some days Bucky had been all that kept Steve afloat. Years and a century later, it was Steve's chance to return the favour. Across the years, to offer of a hand was something that would never change, even if the one who extended it would.

 **NOTE** : this is a two-part series, each part a story of multiple chapters. Part one takes place during before the CA trilogy and during CA:CW, while the second part ensues afterwards.

 **Rating** : T, increasing to M in Part 2

 **Tags** : Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes, Canon Universe, Pre-Canon, Post-Canon, Time Jumps, Multiple POV, Trauma, Trauma Recovery, Camaraderie, Action, Drama, Friendship and Family

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Always**

When he woke up, he hurt.

Such an awakening wasn't unusual for Steve. He always hurt in some way or another. His chest would be aching, constricting as though crushed in a vice of variable tightness. His throat would be raw, his breath coming short, or his head would hurt with the throbbing beginnings of an encroaching migraine. His back would protest the simple act of lying immobile, or his feet from the abuse of standing for what most would consider a negligible period.

Steve wasn't unused to hurting. Most of the time he could overlook it, even. It was when he first awoke in the morning to the feeble light of dawn, however, the familiar discomfort of a hard bed and flat pillow, scratchy blankets and the sound of Brooklyn yawning itself into mumbling wakefulness, that it struck him most fiercely.

Sighing, Steve sild his elbows behind him to prop himself into sitting. It was often a struggle, with some days his back twinging more than usual, or a dizzy spell sending him slumping heavily back onto his mattress. He managed well enough that day, however, a one hand rose to rub at his blurry eyes and squint around his gloomy bedroom.

It was little more than a shoebox in size, barely large enough to fit a narrow bed and a rickety chair wedged in one corner. Steve didn't really care. He didn't need grandness. He was lucky enough to get his own room at all in the broom-closet of an apartment his mother had managed to cling to for years.

The dawn paleness did little to alleviate the shadows, but as Steve pushed himself further up to lean against the wall behind his bed, it was to blink the plainness of his room into better clarity. When he spared a glance towards the chair opposite him, Steve couldn't help but sigh.

"What are you doing here, Bucky?" he asked.

Bucky was a light sleeper. It was something that Steve teased him about – that he never liked to fall too deeply into unconsciousness for fear of missing out on the excitement that could potentially be playing around him. As such, though Steve spoke at little more that a murmur, more to himself than to his friend, it was enough that Bucky shifted in his seat, brow wrinkling slightly in the beginnings of wakefulness.

He was curled in what had to have been an uncomfortable position, with his legs dangling over one of the arms of the chair and half-twisted so his shoulders still slumped against the back. It was something of a miracle that the chair didn't fall apart beneath him, or that he didn't rock it over when he wriggled into wakefulness.

Yawning, Bucky's hand rose in a knuckle one eye. He blinked the other open blearily, peering around him before his gaze settled on Steve. A small, sleepy smile touched his lips. "Hey, Steve. Alright?"

Steve nodded, ignoring the slight objectionable twinge at his nape when he did so. "I'm alright. What are you doing here? I though you said you had to stay at home all this week to look after Rikki?"

Slinging his leg from the arm of the chair, Bucky pushed himself to his feet. He was still dressed in the clothes Steve recalled he'd worn the day before, and the day before that, the plain slacks and shirt too cool for the autumnal weather and slightly stained by wear and tear. In nearly silent steps, he crossed the room and dropped himself onto the end of Steve's bed. He shrugged a shoulder in reply. "I dropped home to say hi and make sure she had something to eat but then I came over here."

"You shouldn't have left her alone," Steve chided without any real force.

"She's old enough to look after herself for a night. She knows not to play with the heater or start a fire or whatever."

"She's seven, Bucky."

Bucky shrugged once more, his familiar half-smile slightly rueful. "And? I was looking after myself when I was seven."

Steve dropped his gaze to his lap. Bucky was always offhanded about such things. It was as though it didn't bother him, as though he didn't care that his mom was gone and his dad nearly there. As though he didn't care that his father's absences were driven more by his tendency to lose himself in the dregs of a bottle than anything more profound. Bucky had indeed been looking after himself since he was seven. Steve could remember. He'd been taking care of himself before that, even. The memory of a five-year-old all but dragged through Steve's door by his overly-caring mother years before would be one that Steve would never forget.

Shunting the thought aside – for Bucky never sought pity or sympathy, and would ignore it if it was offered – Steve adopted a small smile of his own. "Yeah, well, I though we'd worked out you're something of an anomaly."

Bucky laughed quietly. "Are you calling me weird?" he asked, though lacking the affront that such a question would suggest he held.

Steve nodded. "Yep. I'm convinced you could walk through fire and come out the other side perfectly fine."

"I'm indestructible like that."

"Thankfully. It's a good thing Rikki didn't inherit your pyromania."

Lifting his gaze, Steve met Bucky's with a chuckle of his own. His friend was slouched with bony elbows rested upon his knees, scratching at his head in a way that might have been trying to fix its sleepy messiness but was doing a poor job of it. His smile had widened, though, as it always did when they spoke of his younger sister. The Barnes children doted upon one another, a fact that no one in their entire shambling clutch of backstreets was unaware of. Even with only five years between the two of them, in many ways Bucky was more Rikki's father than his own was.

"Next time just bring her along with you if you wanted to come," Steve said, shifting in his seat in an attempt to ease the unshakeable tightness in his back. He drew his knees up to his chest. "Mom will tell you off if you don't."

"Actually, I already talked to her about it," Bucky replied. "Last night, when I got here. She said the same thing. You two are exactly the same, did you know that?"

"When did you even get here?" Steve asked. He wasn't surprised he'd missed Bucky's arrival. Steve tended to retreat with the sun most nights, the simple weight of his body dragging him into exhaustion. It was sometimes even a struggle to force down a meagre dinner. "More than that, why are you here?"

Bucky dropped his hand from his head as he turned towards Steve. His smile faded into seriousness that looked far too mature for him. Steve would always marvel at how Bucky could do that; he wasn't even a year older that Steve, and most of the time he seemed to dance through life carefree and jovial. But that was only most of the time.

Bucky wasn't a fool, nor was he ignorant or blissfully unaware of his circumstances. He had it shit, Steve always thought. In many ways, despite the plethora of illnesses Steve was afflicted with and the scraping of earnings his mother managed to pull in from her long hours, Bucky had it worse. At least Steve had known both his parents were respectable people, even in poverty. Bucky's dad, though in the army, was… not.

It was when Bucky's expression turned sober like that that Steve was reminded all too starkly that his friend was wise and world-weary beyond his years. That half the time his good humour was an act. "You're an idiot if you don't know why I'm here," Bucky muttered with a slight pursing of his lips.

Steve opened his mouth to reply but paused. Frowning, he sunk back into his the wall behind him, wincing slightly as the motion sent sparks of pain simultaneously down his spine. He did know. Steve knew exactly why Bucky had come because he'd done just the same countless times before when Steve had fallen prey to an attack at school, or had a fall coming home, or anything other drama that befell him. He would always show up on Steve's door, sometimes even after Steve had retreated to bed, and just sit in his room or sleep on his chair. Always, and just to make sure he was alright.

Slowly, Steve nodded. "Yeah, I… yeah. Right." He swallowed, dropping his gaze to his knees. "Thanks, Bucky."

"'S alright," Bucky replied quietly.

"You didn't have to."

"I know."

"I'm alright, you know. It wasn't anything serious. I should have just sat down when I felt tired and all, but…"

"I know," Bucky repeated, his tone of a constant mildness, almost offhanded. Despite that, Steve could hear the unspoken understanding in his words. They'd been through such instances enough for him to understand, Steve knew. Bucky understood that Steve was embarrassed for his feebleness, that he felt frustrated by his bouts of ailing, that the guilt accompanying the act of leaning upon someone – most often Bucky or his mother – always arose afterwards. It was likely the main reason that, at least from Bucky, Steve never saw even a hint of pity.

He couldn't be more thankful for that fact.

Swallowing once more, Steve nodded shortly. Pushing himself from the wall, he swung his legs from the bed and, with a tentativeness that he didn't even try to hide from Bucky, slid onto his feet. He could see Bucky watching him attentively from the end of the bed. Steve knew that, for whatever reason, should his body not be up to the task of rising that day, Bucky would be at his side in an instant and grabbing him before he fell. He'd done just that before on multiple occasions.

Blessedly, despite his collapse at school the previous day and the aches he'd endured the previous night, Steve didn't falter that morning. It was with a smothered sigh of relief that he realised he was capable. Bucky would always be there to help him, to catch him, but Steve didn't want to weigh his friend down any more than he already was. Steve's mother was already struggling to keep both of their heads above water; they didn't have to drag anyone else down with them. Bucky was just a kid, too. Just a kid.

"Did you want some breakfast?" Steve said by way of breaking the attentive silence.

Bucky was still for a moment before he offered his one-shouldered shrug. "Yeah, alright. I can go and grab something from home if you'd like."

Steve shook his head, skirting his bed to where he'd discarded his shoes and the previous night. Systematically, he went about poking the mangled balls of newspaper sticking from the mouth back into his shoes, stuffing them to the toes to fill them out just a little. He, just like Bucky, hadn't the care to undress the previous night so he didn't need to change. Not unless he was too filthy to be seen outdoors, which a glance down at himself proved he wasn't. Laundry wasn't for a couple of days, anyway. Steve could scrape through.

"It's fine," he said. "I think we still have some bread left over from last night."

"Probably not enough for four, though," Bucky said, rising to his feet and yawning as he stretched once more. "I should probably go home and pick up Rikki. Take you up on your oh-so-generous offer and all."

Steve could hear the smile in Bucky's tone even before he glanced up from tying his laces. The words weren't sarcastic precisely, nor disregarding the offer ungratefully, but it was teasing nonetheless. Before he could reply, however, Bucky dug into his pocket and extracted a twine-wrapped packet of waxed brown paper. "Here. Your mom told me to give this to you to take straight away when you wake up. Seeing as I'm the first face you'll see and all." He flashed Steve his crooked smile before flipping the package to him.

Steve just managed a fumbling grab, falling backwards onto his arse with a thump. "Thanks," he muttered, even as resignation rose within him. He never like the medicinal granules his mother made him take after he'd had a 'spell'.

"No problem," Bucky replied, already making his way to the door. He stepped into his discarded shoes without pausing to untie them with another smile spared over his shoulder. "I'll see you in a bit."

"I mean it, Bucky," Steve said, clambered to his feet once more. He offered his friend a smile in return. "Thanks. For always, you know… being around for me."

Bucky paused halfway through the doorway with fingers on the handle. His smile softened slightly into one of greater sincerity and, taking a step towards Steve, he reached down to clamp a hand upon his shoulder, giving it a slight squeeze. It was an adult kind of gesture, but seemed to suit the moment.

"Always," he said quietly.

Steve watched as Bucky turned and disappeared through the doorway into the darker recesses of the flat. The tread of his footsteps that were barely audible in his room were utterly absent. The door closed in a creaking swing behind him, and Steve was left alone with one foot shod, staring in his wake.

What did he do to deserve such a friend? He wasn't sure, but he knew that he would never forget the gift Bucky was.

* * *

Pain wasn't a foreign feeling to him. He was used to pain, hardly even felt it anymore. It was because it was a different kind of pain, awkward and twisted but not really painful, that Bucky even noticed it at all.

His head hurt. It throbbed, and each thump in his temple sending sparks skittering across the inside of his eyelids from where it centred in his forehead. His muscles protested the simple act of awakening, remembering the abuse they'd been dragged through prior to his unconsciousness.

Bucky couldn't in that moment recall the nature of that abuse. Stranger, however, was the twisting of his left arm, elevated slightly and unmoveable. Pinned, as though crushed in a vice.

Bucky didn't like being contained. He didn't like that at all.

Bad. It was bad.

He didn't like –

He didn't like being confined. Not that anyone really cared what he wanted, not even Bucky. Not really, but…

Bucky didn't move, didn't struggle in an attempt to free himself, regardless of his desire to do so. he knew better than to do that. Slowly, wincing before even a hint of light filtered into his vision, he opened his eyes. The stringy tresses of his fringe were a matted curtain before his eyes but he could see well enough through it. He could see the room, a wide room of grimy walls and artificial light overhead contesting with that seeping through the broken smudged windows overhead.

In seconds, with barely a flicker of his eyes, Bucky absorbed his surroundings. Four walls, high ceiling, double doorway directly ahead and divided by a blank wall. I was sparse; a factory by the looks of it, and it appeared to have been cleared of anything that could be used even remotely as a weapon. The post half stuck into the wall? Maybe Bucky could use that if he could get his hands on it. It looked stuck pretty fast, but he wagered he could tear it loose. Any weapon was a good one in an unknown situation. To be without was asking for trouble.

There was one – one? – potential threat idling just within sight in the doorway. A tall man, dark, and with a scratching of a beard on his chin. About six-two, he came in at what Bucky mentally tallied at somewhere around two-hundred and forty pounds. Maybe more, it was hard to tell through the thumping in his head. A ball of muscle, he could handle himself; that much was apparent.

All of it, every detail, Bucky noted within seconds of blinking awake. His gaze fastened upon the man. He could take him out. He wasn't going to, but he could. Or he would have been able to, except that…

There was a vice. On Bucky's arm. A real vice clamping his metal arm in place and preventing movement. Bucky did not like to be confined, and it was that more than the awkward positioning of his arm that drew a feeble groan from his lips.

Immediately, the man in the doorway snapped his attention towards Bucky. He spared Bucky nothing more than a glance before he was calling out in a tone of wary attention. "Hey, Cap!"

Cap? Cap was… Bucky blinked to the sound of footsteps rapidly approaching. He shifted, testing the vice on his arm, but – no, he couldn't pull it loose. Even if he could, would he? Likely not. Most likely not, because – because Cap was – he was –

Steve appeared in the opposite doorway to the other man. Even through his grogginess, through the pounding in his head, Bucky couldn't help but stare. Steve. His Steve, just as he remembered him as being from… God, but it was from so long ago. Not the long, long ago, but from before. From before, when Bucky was…

Steve approached him, pausing until he was barely half a dozen paces away. Bucky couldn't help but stare up at him, even if the twisted angle was difficult, was uncomfortable, and the light that pierced his watering eyes from the overhead windows was nearly painful. Steve was tall, just as he remembered, taller even than Bucky was, and big. He had the look of a man who regularly lifted pick-up trucks for kicks, who would raise the roof of a burning building to free a trapped family with barely a grunt of effort.

He was strong, Steve Rogers, Bucky knew. Strong, and good, and that strength and goodness radiated from him. Even had Bucky not accepted as much as a fact, he felt sure he would have suspected. Steve was good.

He was Bucky's polar opposite. So far out of reach. So far away from him.

And yet, even with that thought, even in the second it arose, Bucky felt an unfamiliar upwelling of affection for him. It was one he hadn't felt in years. Decades. Bucky didn't feel; not like that. But when his attention skimmed over the familiar curve of blond hair, the sharp, strong lines of Steve's face, the unblinking intensity of his eyes, Bucky…

He felt.

That was the most uncomfortable, unfamiliar part of the entire situation. It was weightier, even, that the urge within him to get out, to move, to break free and run, but somehow in a good way. Steve's presence, the fastening of his gaze upon Bucky and only Bucky, somehow grounded him. It seemed to shunt any thought of escape, of fighting, of anger and aggression and the urge to return to where he should be, from Bucky's mind. He'd been fighting that urge alone for so long that it was unhinging to have the weight lifted from his shoulders by the simple presence of another. And it was all because of –

"Steve," he found himself muttering. His words were little more than a croak.

Steve didn't blink. His expression was schooled and unchanging but for the barest of frowns and the slight tightening of his jaw. "Which Bucky am I talking to?"

Fair call, Bucky thought, blinking the residual grogginess from his mind. It was a struggle, but with Steve's words memories rose to the surface. Memories of years long gone, mostly forgotten but not yet wholly lost. "Your mom's name was Sarah," Bucky mumbled, the words supplying themselves for him and posing an image of the woman herself in all of her smiling, affectionate, maternal beauty. That, and –"You used to wear newspapers in your shoes."

Quite against his will – and much to his surprise – Bucky found himself chuckling. It was a strange feeling, foreign, and the sound was more the croaking huff of a sigh than real laughter. He couldn't remember the last time he'd managed such a sound.

Just like that, Steve's expression changed. Bucky was staring – staring at everything, but mostly Steve – so he saw the instant it happened. His eyes softened, brow wrinkling just slightly in something other than a frown, and the smallest smile settled on his lips. "You can't read that in a museum," he said, something like relief touching his tone.

"Just like that we're supposed to be cool?" the other man said flatly.

Bucky instantly snapped his full attention towards him, focusing on the incredulity that the man didn't attempt to hide. He spared a brief glance for Bucky, and there was something more than wariness for an assumed threat in his eyes. There was understanding. He knew.

Fuck. Fuck, not again. I though I might have managed to… Bucky had tried so hard. So hard, to thrust his unshakeable urges aside, to vanquish the compulsions HYDRA had forced upon him from his mind. From the man's glare, he clearly hadn't been successful.

Abruptly, a previously forgotten torrent of memories flushed through Bucky's mind. Strapped to a chair. A reinforced glass cage. A man with glasses and a knowingly intent gaze. Those horribly familiar words. "What did I do?"

"Enough," Steve said, more sorrowfully than curt.

Bucky fought against a cringe and failed. His bowed his head with a sigh. "I knew this would happen," he muttered, peering up at Steve. "Everything HYDRA put inside me is still there. All he had to do is say the goddamn words."

"Who was he?" Steve asked, the softness fading from his face once more into a long-ago familiar expression that took Bucky a moment to identify. It was resolute. Hardened. Shunting aside the personal for the professional, for the necessary.

Bucky dropped his chin further. "I don't know."

"People are dead," Steve said, curt this time but not cruel. "The bombing. The set up. The doctor did all that just to get ten minutes with you. I need you to do better than 'I don't know'."

So much Bucky had almost forgotten. So much fluttered on the edges of his consciousness, called forth with Steve's very presence. It had happened before, each time Bucky had confronted him, but this time was different. This time was more.

It was hard to concentrate, hard to focus anywhere else, even upon the other man who clearly hated him. Which, Bucky realised, he couldn't exactly blame him for. He recognised him now; he was the birdman, the one with the metal wings. The metal wings that Bucky had torn off his back with his bare hands before throwing him from the sky.

Huh. So he hadn't died. The man must be more resilient than he'd given him credit for.

But Bucky barely noticed such memories. He barely noticed them at all but for acknowledgement, for Steve had spoken and the memories he requested were coaxed forth. Even at his weakest, at his most feeble, when he was young and sickly and beaten down, there was something about the way Steve spoke. He was always sincere. He always spoke from the heart, even about the simplest of things.

A distant recollection of their old team, the Howling Commandos, rose in Bucky's mind. Steve could give any order, and even if it seemed impossible, the entirety of their troupe would do their utmost to fulfil it. That was the sort of person Steve was. He made people want to follow him. He gave them faith

Blinking, forcibly shoving the bleariness from his mind, Bucky raised his chin. He fought a familiar struggle against the throbbing in his forehead, he peered up at Steve as he dredged up as much of what was asked of him. His memories were always hazy, unreliable at best, but…

"He wanted to know about Siberia," Bucky said. "Where I was kept. He wanted to know exactly where."

"Why would he want to know that?" the birdman asked sharply.

Bucky paused, briefly closing his eyes. The answer supplied itself with regret and frustration, despair and weariness. Just a touch of anger that he had never allowed himself to feel welled within him; that was a strange feeling too. Not good or bad, but strange. "Because I'm not the only Winter Soldier."

Steve and the birdman were silent. Bucky saw them exchange a glance, weighted and filled with unspoken words and foreboding. Then Steve returned his attention to Bucky, and his expression softened again slightly once more. "Good job."

It shouldn't have felt as good as it did to be complimented, Bucky knew. It shouldn't have warmed something within him that had felt nothing but icy cold for what felt like centuries, but it did. The foreignness was unnerving. Bucky dropped his chin once, hunching slightly. His motion tugged at his metal arm that refused to budge even a little in the vice's grasp.

With a huff, he gritted his teeth. "Get me out of here," he muttered.

In an instant Steve stepped forward to comply. It was perhaps a good thing that it was Steve who did so; even when it was him, Bucky felt the near compulsive urge to withdraw. He probably would have snapped the birdman's head off.

Bucky couldn't feel pain exactly in his left arm, but he sighed in unrestrainable relief when the pressure eased, slumping from the awkward position to lean with elbows on knees. There was a part of him – a very big part – that longed to leap his feet, snap a series of punches at the birdman, a kick into Steve's gut, and make a break for escape. It was almost overwhelming in its demands, but Bucky resisted. It wasn't so much that he wanted to remain crumpled to the floor in a grimy factory. It was just that Steve was there. Steve, who was looking at him with soft, familiar eyes, and stepping to his side to drop into a crouch before him.

"You alright?" he murmured, tipping his head slightly in an attempt to peer at Bucky's face.

Bucky didn't raise his chin. Instead, he slumped back against the machine that, until seconds ago, had been an unbreakable prison. He shrugged one shoulder, ignoring the twinge at the point his metal arm fused to his skin. How long had he been held in that vice like that?

"Fine," he muttered.

"You don't look fine," the birdman said, setting up a slow pace back and forth between the two doorways into the room. "You look like shit."

"There's a reason for that."

"Yeah, I'll bet taking out a bunch of the world's leading agents is real tiring."

Bucky raised his gaze to pin the man. He'd already decided he didn't like him. That in itself wasn't particularly unusual, as Bucky didn't really like anyone, but the birdman was annoying. It wasn't the suspicion that he trained upon him; Bucky had undergone his fair share of such in his life. It was more that he was sarcastic, unrepentant in his accusations, and blunt. He reminded Bucky too much of how he'd been in his younger years – or at least what he could recall of how he'd been, which admittedly wasn't all that much at times.

Before Bucky could reply, Steve half-turned towards his friend. "Sam."

"Yeah?" the birdman said without breaking the staring match he and Bucky shared.

"Just take a moment, would you?"

Sam's expression remained flat for another long moment, gaze trained upon Bucky, before he seemed to deflate slightly. Then, with a slight scrunch of his nose, he nodded. "Whatever. Just don't drop your guard and let his smack your head off or anything."

"He's not going to do that," Steve replied with that age-old touch of utter sincerity in his tone. It hurt a little to hear.

When he turned back to Bucky, drawing his attention from where Sam returned to his pacing, it was to affix Bucky with that same sincerity. Bucky didn't think he could have attacked him then even had he orders to.

"Are you alright?" Steve asked again. His voice was lower this time, deeper and more genuine, as though he truly wanted to know rather than just offering a superficial query to the matter.

Bucky shrugged again. It twinged a little less this time. "Fine."

"Bucky."

"I'm fine, Steve." Bucky dropped his gaze. It was difficult to meet Steve's eyes. He felt dirty, tainted, as though Steve were an exalted image of purity and he truly was his polar opposite. He wasn't, Bucky knew. His old friend – so, so old – was far from innocent. It was just that, as they were now, as he felt now, Bucky was about as deep and filthily in the mud as he could get.

Steve crouched beside him. It couldn't have been a particularly comfortable squat, but Bucky had no doubt he could remain like that all day if he chose to. Steve had always been stubborn. As Bucky peered up at him through the strings of his fringe, Bucky saw his forehead crease once more, a soft, sad little smile touching his lips. He managed to make expressions of the faintly heartbroken a form of art.

"You've been through hell, Buck," he said quietly. "It would have been impossible for you not to acquire some sort of injuries, even if your regeneration takes care of the worst of them. Tell me."

Bucky shifted uncomfortably, though discomforted more for the words than for his position. Steve shouldn't be asking him such things. No one should. Why did it matter? Bucky wasn't dead, he was mobile, and he could see and think with relative clarity. He knew that, should he need to, he would be able to spring into action, and he would put up a good fight for Steve and Sam both. Somewhere in the back of his head, Bucky knew that Steve's question was what normal people asked one another. It was what he'd asked once upon a time, long ago, when he was a deluded and ignorant child. But now was different.

"I think it would be better to skip the pity act and get to business," Bucky said.

"Bucky," Steve began, eyes tightening slightly as though he was physically pained.

Bucky stared him into silence. "What do you want, Steve?"

Steve pressed his lips together, his brow crinkling further. "I want to help you, Bucky. Always." A small, pained smile touching his lips, even as his frown remained. "Just like we always did for each other."

For another long moment, Bucky stared. That warm feeling in his chest, almost painfully warm as it chewed at the hard iciness within him, swelled just a little. He remembered that. He could remember it from so long ago. It hurt to recall, and Bucky suspected he understood where the pain from Steve's smile arose.

With a sigh, he raised a hand to rake through his matted hair, forcing the thought aside. "I'm fine, Steve. Just… just fine."

"'Fine' doesn't exactly instil a whole lot of confidence," Sam said from the doorway. He wasn't looking in Bucky and Steve's direction, but clearly the stillness and quietness of the factory was enough that their murmured conversation was audible.

"No one asked for you opinion," Bucky mumbled under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Said thank you for your contribution."

Sam glanced his way, regarding him with a raised eyebrow before he snorted and shook his head. "Right. Sure." He turned towards Steve. "We gonna tiptoe around the topic here or get down to it?"

Steve gave a soft exhalation that wasn't quite a sigh. "Alright, then. Alright. Just – keep me updated, Bucky."

Whatever that meant, Bucky didn't want to consider. He didn't really understand it; a distant memory niggled of some vague understanding existed, but he couldn't quite make sense of it. Instead, he only nodded. "Yeah."

"So, these Winter Soldiers," Sam said, stepping back across the room in slow steps. He kept his arms folded across his chest, but the stance was more assertive than defensive. Bucky couldn't help but follow him his eyes, glaring at shift of his movements. Step… step… step…

"Who were they?" Steve asked.

It was distraction enough that Bucky managed to draw his attention from Sam, Steve's question demanded in the politest way possible.

Bucky didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to recall that time, those days, the darkness and the fighting. He didn't want to think of the soldiers with their emotionless faces that hardened only slightly when they threw themselves at their targets. But he'd been asked. Bucky didn't have much, didn't know and couldn't do much good; he would likely never be able to.

But Steve had asked him.

With a deep breath, Bucky closed his eyes. "The most elite death squad…" he began, and fell to the emotional state of reporting as he told them everything he knew. It was, he'd found, easier that way. It was easier to pretend he didn't care.


	2. Chapter 2 - Steadfast

**Chapter 2: Steadfast**

The feeling of a fist crunching into his cheek was not an unfamiliar one. It was almost too familiar, even if Steve never deliberately started a fight. He couldn't, even if he'd wanted to put someone in their place in the only way that many could understand. He wasn't big, or strong, and he didn't have the stamina or the intimidation to do so. Most of the rest of the boys his age were gaining a bit of height, a bit of breadth. Even Bucky was starting to grow into the lanky legged impression of a colt alongside them.

Not Steve, though. That was the issue.

His back smacked into the wall of the school building, head bouncing on the brick in a painful crack that rattled his teeth. Steve slumped against its support, hands scrambling for purchase. It was a struggle to maintain his footing, but he managed. With a grunt, he pushed himself upright, staggered slightly before raising his hands in fists. Even to himself they looked feeble.

Across from him, Crawson had already lowered his fists, knuckles stained with blood that wasn't his own. He was a big boy, tall and burly and one of the biggest in their class. He'd taken a sudden, more profound dislike to Steve when he'd beaten him in their last test. Not that beating Crawson was any particularly strenuous feat. Just about everyone did. The difference was that Steve was small enough and weak enough to be easily overpowered by him. More than that, he was probably one of only a few who wouldn't complain.

As Steve hefted his fists, wavering on his feet, Crawson rolled his eyes. "You just don't know when to stay down, do you, Rogers?" Raising his fist, his lip curled in a sneer. "Learn you place, will you? Below _me_." Then he stepped forward with arm swinging.

Steve tried to block the oncoming blow. He tried to dodge, to snap his arm into place between the fist heading towards his gut. He managed, too, but Crawson's strike simply continued through it. A punch to the stomach, an elbow in his jaw, another knee to the gut and his elbow swung in a second downward slam. Wthin seconds, Steve was doubled beneath the eruption of pain. His knees buckled beneath Crawson's force, sinking him to the ground that a detached part of his mind thanked was blessedly dry. It wouldn't do to make the knees of his trousers any more stained than they already were.

He hurt. He hurt from rising bruises that were already blossoming what felt like everywhere on his body. He hurt from the familiar ache in his chest, the tightness in his back, the soreness of his head and his throat and his knees and feet. Pain was not unfamiliar to Steve, but sometimes it was exceptionally difficult to ignore.

But he did. Crumpled to the ground as he was, with Crawson pausing only to stab a toe in his side in a kick before taking a step backwards once more, Steve ignored it. He swept a hand across his face, through the bloody smear across his lip, and thrust the pains to the side. Planting both hands on the ground, with a push that felt like a Herculean trial, he clambered to his feet once more.

Steve couldn't stay down. He never could. If he stayed down as so many told him to, then he would never get back up again.

Blinking, panting as he hadn't even realised he was doing, Steve peered up at Crawson. The bigger boy was staring at his with eyebrows raised as though surprised before he rolled his eyes once more and shook his head. "You really don't know when to stay down, Rogers," he said, spitting at Steve's feet as though disgusted. "Why the hell would you bother?"

Steve struggled to smooth his breathing. Doing so was almost as much of a struggle as it was to climb to stand. "I can… do this all day."

Crawson stared for a moment longer as Steve hefted his fists once more. It was a useless gesture, he knew – he always knew – but Steve would never let them lie. Never. Then Crawson shook his head, muttered a snide, "Well, you asked for it," and raised his own with a swing.

Only to stumble, lurching forwards in a stagger. He half spun towards his unexpected attacker but didn't even manage to fully turn before he was struck. Once in the gut, a smack over the head with an open hand, a leg swept through his own to fling him to the ground.

Steve took a staggering step backwards into the wall as Crawson turned from attacker to victim. Bucky moved so fast it was almost impossible to make out what he was actually doing. He snapped a kick to Crawson's side, another to the hand that swung in a fist towards him. He dodged a kick before darting forwards to grab the upraised leg and topple Crawson to the ground once more. Then he was atop him, smacking him across his head in an open-handed strike and dropping his full weight onto Crawson's chest, pinning his arms to the ground with his knees.

It was over so fast that Steve hadn't even the time to lower his fists before Crawson was truly and thoroughly felled.

Gasping for breath, it was only when Crawson was flat on his back and immobilised that he seem to realise who had attacked him. "Barnes! The fuck are you –?"

"You beating up my friend, Crawson?" Bucky interrupted him, breathing only a little heavily himself. From what Steve could see of his face he looked angry. His eyes were narrowed, lip curled, and his left fist was still raised in preparation to strike.

Something like real fear dawned on Crawson's face. "What? N-no, I –"

"'Cause that's what it fucking looked like."

"No, I didn't – I mean, it was just –"

"I don't think he woke up with a smashed up nose and a black eye. Think I would remember 'cause I came to fucking _school_ with him."

Crawson cringed as much as he could beneath Bucky as Bucky's fist tightened. It didn't descend but it was menacing enough threat as it was. Bucky was smaller than Crawson – quite a bit smaller, even – but he'd already developed a reputation for himself for fighting like a wildcat. Steve didn't know where the inclination and sudden skill to do so had come from, seemingly to have arisen from nowhere, but he didn't question it. Bucky didn't hold back, and what he lacked in professional technique and finesse he more than made up for in determination and resilience.

No one wanted to cross Bucky. In the past few years, the entire school, seniors and juniors alike, had come to realise that. Somehow, he always seemed to rise to the occasion whenever Steve needed him. For some reason, that only made him seem more intimidating to everyone else.

Steve sagged more fully against the wall. He didn't really want to see Bucky bullying Crawson, but in that moment couldn't bring himself to intervene. Not when his cheek throbbed, his nose felt like it was swelling to twice its size, and he could feel the black eye coming on stinging in memory of the blow. That was to say nothing of beyond his face. Steve wasn't so lenient as to overlook Crawson's actions for what they truly were, even if he had fought back. He'd likely have beaten Steve until he could no longer stand if given the option.

All for Steve's stupid pride.

So he didn't step forwards. He didn't call Bucky away from their Crawson, and not only because he knew that Bucky wouldn't do any real damage. It wasn't in his nature to mindlessly attack and destroy. He fought for a reason, for a purpose, and Steve knew without even a touch of arrogance or smugness that he was more often than not the source of it all.

"I – I didn't mean –" Crawson croaked, swallowing convulsively as though attempting to rid himself of fear that twisted his features. "Look, Barnes, I want no trouble with you –"

"Should've thought about that about ten minutes ago, then, shouldn't you've?"

Crawson nodded vigorously, cowering in a way that would have been laughable for the differences in their sizes had anyone not seen how quickly Bucky took him down. Bucky was a force to be reckoned with. "I – I should've. I mean, I will. I won't do it –"

"Better not fucking do it again," Bucky snarled, his resemblance to a wildcat only intensified. Steve could almost see his teeth sharpen. "I'll give you twice as much over if you ever do." Then, with another open-handed cuff of Crawson's head, he climbed off him. It could have been a coincidence that he ended up positioned before Steve as Crawson struggled to his own feet, but Steve didn't think so.

Crawson only spared a moment to glance in Bucky's direction, not even bothering with Steve, before he turned tail at a staggering run and disappeared around the side of the school building. The sound of his uneven footsteps retreated until they were little more than retreating echoes.

Bucky turned back to Steve after a long moment of unblinking staring in Crawson's wake. His expression was so vastly different from how it had been seconds before that it was almost jarring. His brow was drawn in a straight line of worry, eyes widened from their glare and peering at Steve worriedly. In an instant he was stepping forwards, tugging a sleeve over his fingers to and reaching forward to swipe at the blood on his lip. Steve didn't object, biting back a wince as Bucky's fingers proceeded to brush and then press against his stinging nose.

They were both silent for a moment. Steve leant back against they wall of the classroom building, unable yet to bring himself to straighten on his wobbly legs. He held his tongue as Bucky dabbed at his nose, frown deepening as he worked. He didn't meet Steve's gaze until he finally spoke.

"What the hell, Steve?"

Steve sighed. He reached up to wrap his fingers around Bucky's stained sleeve, pausing his tending. "It's not like I did it on purpose. I don't look for fights, Buck."

"Yeah, but you sure as hell don't ask for help, either," Bucky replied. He clicked his tongue. "Why don't you ever just _ask_ me?"

Steve could only shake his head. That was one thing about Bucky that he would be unendingly grateful for: that Bucky never reprimanded him for the fighting and standing up for himself. It was only that he did it alone. Bucky was exceptional even from Steve's mother in that regard.

"You weren't around," he said.

"I could've been."

"What, and skip detention?"

Bucky shrugged. "I don't much fancy the cane anyways. I could've slipped it."

Steve huff a chuckle, shaking his head once more. "Yeah, and you would have gotten twice as many tomorrow."

"I still would've looked better than your face right now."

Steve could only offer a feeble smile at Bucky's words. He was probably right. Steve wasn't sure just how bad it was, but he was familiar enough with such confrontations to place it on a scale. It felt like it sat at about a six or a seven. Wonderful.

Sniffing, and wincing as his nose twinged, Steve set to wiping at his face to erase what little Bucky had missed. Bucky took a slight step backwards, fiddling with his sleeves and fingers as though he needed something his hands itched to simply do something.

"Did Watson even tell you what you were in trouble for before you got it?" Steve asked, deliberately turning the topic from himself.

Bucky smirked, shaking his head. "Nope. Said I should've known."

"It was probably because you're always talking."

"Probably." Bucky nodded.

"How many did you get?"

Bucky tugged his sleeves back to bare the knuckles of both hands. He turned his gaze with mild curiosity down upon the reddened skin. It was likely the reason that he'd settled for cuffing instead of punching when he'd leapt upon Crawson. "Ten each."

"Seriously?"

"I know. Unfair, right?"

Steve chuckled, though even that hurt. His bruises were settling now, not quite as sharply painful but still aching. It was a struggle for Steve to straighten from the wall, and he found himself wavering slightly again. Or at least, he was until Bucky stepped wordlessly to his side and slung a wiry arm around his shoulders. He wasn't all that much taller than Steve, but it was enough.

"You should probably do something about that," Bucky said, gesturing vaguely to Steve's face as they began a slow walk in the direction of the school gates. Not a student remained and only the occasional teacher, most clearing from the premises the instant class let out. "Your mom have any cold presses or something?"

Steve paused in step, sparing Bucky a sidelong glance. "She does…"

"But?" Bucky raised an eyebrow. "No, let me guess. You don't want to bother her."

Steve frowned, averting his gaze. "Can you blame me?"

"Not really. But she'd want to know." Bucky squeezed his shoulders gently. "Besides, she'll find out anyway soon enough."

Steve was silent. It wasn't because he denied Bucky's knowing words but more because he didn't want to talk about it. Not about his mother, or how showing up on her doorstep would only cause her distress that she couldn't handle right now. Not _now_. What kind of a son would he be that he would so upset his mother when she was unwell?

Bucky seemed to understand his silence. Steve caught sight of his lips pursing from the corner of his eye, a renewed frown settling on his brow. "Then…"

"It's alright, Bucky. Just leave it," Steve said with a grateful smile before dropping his gaze down to his toes. It was easier if he concentrated solely on walking. "I'll just… I don't know, wait till it's dark or something before heading inside."

It was Bucky's turn to fall silent. Only for a moment, however, because Bucky was never one to hold his tongue for long. "'Kay, then just stick at my place until then. I think… no, I don't know where Dad is at the moment. Don't give a fuck, to be honest, but he shouldn't be around this early in the afternoon. If he is he's probably passed out already."

Steve didn't comment on Bucky's offhanded words, careless as they sounded and, most likely, truly were. Bucky seemed to have little regard for his father – nothing so much as favour, pity or hatred. For Bucky's sake, Steve attempted the same.

Instead, he nodded, affording his friend another grateful smile when he glanced towards him. "Thanks, Bucky. That'd be… thanks. I just –" He paused, dropping his gaze down to his feet. "I'm sorry to do this to you, Buck. Sorry to weigh you down."

"Steve –"

"I don't know why you bother, honestly. I'm hardly worth your trouble."

Bucky didn't respond immediately. Not in words, anyway. Instead, even as they kept their slow, steady pace – compensating for Steve, no less – his arm squeezed slightly around Steve's shoulders. In many ways, that simple gesture spoke more than words. Even more so because Bucky was inclined to chatter his concerns away.

"Not hardly. It's no problem," was all Bucky said. That, followed by a brief moment where he dropped his head to rest just slightly against Steve's. Steve felt his throat tighten. It was a different kind of pain to that he usually experienced, tightness spreading the whole way down to his chest and making it difficult to breathe for a different reason.

They picked up pace as they made their way from the schoolyard and into the muddy streets of downtown, dodging puddles as they went. Somehow, Steve didn't trip over once. He didn't have to look to Bucky, unwaveringly at his side, to know the reason why.

* * *

It was crazy. _He_ was crazy.

Bucky knew he was a good fighter. A great fighter, even. There was no arrogance or pride in the knowledge for it was simply fact. A sorry fact that often filled him with self-loathing but a fact nonetheless. Long years had passed since he'd forced himself to learn to protect his best friend from the bastards of the schoolyard, and in that time, any satisfaction for his skills had died.

Bucky could fight and he was _good_ at it. But this opponent? This man in the cat suit with the claws that had to be vibranium for their sharpness? He was very, _very_ good.

The battle raging at the airport had exploded into mayhem. Bucky was instantly grateful that Steve had the foresight to bulk out their numbers before attempting to escape. Bucky worked solo when he could, didn't consider those in his team even when he didn't, but he knew that he would have been quickly overwhelmed if not for Sam, for Clint and Scott and the girl Wanda who looked little more than a teenager. And Steve. Without Steve they would have been overwhelmed in seconds.

Explosions erupted every other minute.

Arrows whizzed through the air to similarly explode alongside the numerous flying figures that soared in an aggressive game of tag.

There were crates and boxes, cars and even the wings of the sidelong planes flung into the air by Wanda with her scarlet, sparking telekinesis and the kid with the spider webs both.

And on the ground, upon the tarmac and swinging blows, dodging and leaping and ducking and _fighting_ , they all fought.

Bucky didn't know how everyone else was managing at that moment. He'd kept a wary eye out for them all at first, but that attentiveness had been discarded when the cat-man set his sights upon him. He was an impressive figure, taller than Bucky and clad in a skin-tight, seamless suit, helmet with peaked ears and all. The narrow, silver eyes that were the only features of his face seemed to glare at Bucky when he'd sped towards him, arm rising to flex flashing claws.

After that, Bucky didn't have time to discern further features. He lost himself in the fight. It was all he could do to keep his head.

The cat-man was fast. He attacked as fast as a super-soldier, arms swiping and slicing the air above Bucky's head as he just managed to duck in time. He threw himself bodily at Bucky, claws flexing and legs tucking for a double kick, and Bucky had to duck and roll once more, darting into flight and skidding around the vehicles and crates that scattered the tarmac just to save himself.

Not that it did much good; the cat-man leapt over them as though they were picket fences.

He attempted to fight back. He even got a good few blows in, thrusting his left hand in an uppercut that snapped the man's chin backwards and caused him to stagger and landing him a push kick to the gut that sent him flying. He managed a double jab to the gut when the cat-man sprung to his feet moments later, striking him to the ground with an axe kick cracking to the centre of his back before springing away. An exchange of punches, dodging the jump kick that soared far too high for an normal human, dropping to a roll and swiping his leg beneath his opponents.

It was fast paced, hectic, crazed. Bucky could hardly keep up with it, let alone monitor the progress of those around him. And the main reason? The cat-man definitely wanted to destroy him. That much was evidenced in the barest exchange they managed, grappling and faces inches apart but for a moment.

"I didn't kill your father," Bucky said, because that fact, that motive, was all he knew of the man.

"Then why did you run away?" the man growled back. Then there was no more time for words, because Bucky was fighting for his life.

He didn't want to kill the man. He was attempting to kill Bucky in turn, but Bucky didn't want to kill _him_. That wasn't who he was anymore, not who he wanted to be. Everything would always dissolve into a fight, but Bucky could choice how it ended. He _could_. Or at least, he could to a degree. His opponent seemed intent on taking that choice from him too.

Still, it was better than some alternatives.

A vicious turning kick sprung from nowhere, as Bucky was abruptly distracted by a flying car surfing on red sparks. The cat-man's foot struck him fully in the chest, a snap to the sternum that thrust his breath from his lungs and sent him tumbling backwards over himself. He struck the tarmac, barely acknowledging the smack of his head on hard concrete even as it momentarily blinded him and set a ringing in his ears.

Without paused, even as dizziness swayed him, Bucky rolled to his knees. He managed to half rise to his feet, hand beneath him to launch himself to standing, before the blurring image of the cat-man shot towards him. Reflex was all that blocked the blow to his face, but almost before Bucky could respond, the other arm drew back with claws bared, too fast, _so fast_ , and –

Steve sprung out of nowhere. Somehow, he managed to move even faster than the cat-man, and in a spinning blur crashed into him mid air. There was a tumble, bodies rolling as they crashed to the ground. Bucky was on his feet and sprinting after them before he even considered what he was doing. Instinct more than intention urged him to Steve's aid.

Steve looked none the worse for wear for his brief flight and subsequent collision. He was already back on his feet, throwing himself into a frenzy of attacks. He threw punches and dodged the cat-man's kicks, using his shield as a weapon as much as for defence. He was fast, _so fast_ , that Bucky could hardly see his motions. Incredible, just as Bucky had always thought. It was like…

It was just like him, yet different. Which would make sense.

They were evenly matched, the two of them. That much Bucky noticed in the split-second before he charged to Steve's defence. The cat-man clearly didn't see him coming, for when Bucky snapped a powerful push kick to the centre of his back he was thrown bodily into the air. The Frisbee of Steve's shield soared after him, flung with vicious intent. It struck him even further into the distance like a canon shot. The shield returned from its circuitous route as though magnetised, and Steve grasped it from the air like a striking snake.

Steve didn't spare a moment to glance towards their distant opponent struggling to his feet. He – surprisingly, _so_ surprisingly since this was _Steve_ – hadn't appeared to pulling his punches in the slightest. Instead he spun, panting and eyes wide, towards Bucky.

He was worried. Something in the back of Bucky's mind, some baffled yet knowing part, told him he was worried.

"Thank God," Steve huffed, closing his eyes briefly. "Thought he had you for a second there."

Bucky spared him a moment of blank staring before shaking his head slightly with a frown. "No, I – what do you take me for?"

The beginnings of a surprised yet relieved smile touched Steve's lips, but the wasn't time for it to grow. An explosion struck the truck behind them, then the spider kid shot his webbing overhead. Then there was Natasha flying towards them with a whirlwind of kicks, Clint briefly abandoned behind her, and the man Steve called Tony soared back to reengage in the fight that Steve had clearly momentarily neglected. It all fell to mania once more. Bucky threw himself back into the mad game of attack and defend once more.

He was panting when given his next reprieve. That temporary pause only arose because the little ant-man had drawn a distraction from Tony that sent him sparking and jerking from the air. Bucky found himself spinning and ducking from the cat-man's attacks, lunging into the relative shelter of a plane and crouching from view. Seconds later, Steve appeared barely half a dozen steps found him, similarly crouched.

How long had they been fighting? Bucky wasn't sure. He didn't know, had always struggled with losing his sense of time when in the throughs of a fight. But in that moment of pause, as he caught a glimpse of the black-suited flying man soaring overhead on Sam's tail, it all caught up with him. The fight wasn't slowing and…

 _We're wasting time_.

Glancing towards Steve, Bucky's breathing already slowing, they locked eyes. In Steve, he saw his own thoughts reflected. "We've gotta go," he said shortly. "That guy's probably in Siberia by now."

Steve nodded just as Sam's voice filtered through Bucky's earpiece. _"I'm gonna draw all the fliers."_

"I'll take Vision," Steve said by way of agreement, his hand rising to touch his ear. Hi peered around him in a constant scan: overhead, under the plane, across the tarmac. "You get to the jet."

 _"No, you get to the jet,"_ Sam barked in reply almost before Steve had finished speaking. _"Both of you. The rest of us aren't getting out of here."_

Bucky was watching, Steve so he saw the brief, barely perceivable flash of pain that crossed his face, tightening his eyes even as they continued their darting scan. Bucky felt his own upwelling guilt; it was more a by-product of Steve's pain, but it was guilt nonetheless. He was familiar with that feeling. He'd felt it oftentimes of late.

Before Steve could speak, however, Clint's voice followed on Sam's. _"As much as I hate to admit it, if we're gonna win this one, some of us might have to lose it. This isn't the real fight, Steve."_

The pain and almost angry reluctance twisted Steve's face for a moment longer. It wouldn't last, though, Bucky knew. He knew because he was of a similar mind. Clint was right. This _wasn't_ the real fight. There was something so much worse waiting for them and if they didn't… if they didn't leave _now_ …

"Alright, Sam," Steve finally said in curt reply. "What's the plan?"

Bucky, maintaining his own rigid and battle-ready crouch, caught sight of Sam as he soared overhead in the moments of his reply. _"We need a diversion. Something big."_

 _"I've got something big,"_ another voice – the ant-man, Scott whatever-his-name-was – interrupted in pants. _"But I can't hold it very long. On my signal, run like hell. And if I tear myself in half, don't come back for me."_

Bucky exchanged a sharp glance with Steve and saw his own incredulity reflected. _What the fuck?_ "He gonna tear himself in half?" he found himself muttering.

"You sure about this guy?" Steve said dubiously, as if they even had the time to ask.

 _"I do it all the time,"_ Scott panted in reply. What was he doing? He sounded exhausted. _"I mean once. In a lab. And I passed out."_

Bucky was shaking his head with the urge to curse at the idiocy of people in general as Scott's words faded into something that sounded like chanting self-praise. Bucky tuned it out, glancing his shoulder once more. He could see Clint facing off against Natasha with punches and dodges while he managed to pull off shots at the fliers overhead. Wanda was caught between and dextrously pinning the cat-man to the ground and while launching red shots at the drifting red-flying man Steve called Vision. Sam was drawing Tony and the black-suited man on a dizzying chase into Clint's line of fire, while the spider-kid appeared to be flying behind them when –

A sudden explosion snapped Bucky from his sharp scanning. No, not quite an explosion. It was more… an eruption. A spontaneous combustion. A spontaneous appearance? Bucky didn't know, couldn't put words to it, and could only stare up at what was vaguely recognisable as being Scott in all of his sudden and giant glory. He was _huge_. How did he…? What was…?

No, Bucky didn't want to think about that. Enough of the world was already turned on its head for him to even attempt to make sense of it.

"I guess that's the signal," Steve muttered from his side. Bucky spared him a glance as he took half a step from their protective cover. What looked like amusement warred with his renewed incredulity upon his face.

 _"Way to go, tic-tac!"_ Sam called in an outburst of laughter.

 _The world really has gone insane_ , Bucky thought, shaking of his head. That was all he had time for, however, for almost without waiting for Steve's signal, he took the distraction provided and leapt into a sprint towards the hangar.

Bucky didn't look behind him, didn't even look alongside him but to keep a peripheral eye on Steve. He vaulted over a carton of crates, skirted a truck and slid over the bonnet of another before hitting the ground running on the other side. The sound of smashes, of crashes and explosions, of shots striking in dull thuds and resounding pops, chased after them, but Bucky didn't look backwards. They had a mission. They had something that was even more important that ensuring the wellbeing and escape of Steve's friends.

But it didn't make Bucky feel any less guilty for it. These were Steve's friends. _God_ but he was sick of feeling guilty, even if it was deserved.

Steve ran in leaping strides in step alongside him, shield strapped to his forearm and arms pumping. He didn't look backwards either, though Bucky knew he longed to. He was Steve; of course he would want to. That thought tightened Bucky's chest, made him draw a gasping breath where the speed of their flight caused little weariness.

"Steve," he called, as much to be heard over the scant distance between them as because his flaring guilt demanded to be voiced. "Steve, you can't just – you're gonna just leave them –"

"Don't have a choice, Bucky," Steve replied shortly. Bucky knew his shortness wasn't for anger towards him, but it still stung. Steve was hurt, upset, but he ploughed through that pain regardless. "It's got to be done."

"I'll go," Bucky replied as they darted beneath another plane so briefly that the shadow barely had time to touch them. Another explosion and a mammoth cry that must have been Scott sounded behind them, but neither Bucky nor Steve spared it a glance. "You stay behind, help them out. I'll go and –"

"No," Steve growled, low and sharp in a tone that Bucky hadn't heard before. Or at least that he couldn't recall hearing it. Steve didn't break stride as he snapped his gaze directly towards Bucky. He was fierce, almost angry in a way that he had so rarely been in the past. It stilled Bucky's tongue. "I'm _not_ letting you go alone."

Bucky couldn't reply to that. He couldn't even conjure words in retort. Instead, he clenched his jaw, turned back towards the hangar, and set to pushing himself faster.

Barely seconds away was when the watchtower alongside that hangar exploded. The laser that struck it from behind them sliced the top half from the lower like a hot knife through butter. Bucky snapped his gaze up towards it even as he urged his legs to move faster, to stretch further. It was sliding, tumbling, crumbling. No accident could have felled the tower with such perfect timing. Bucky wouldn't have believed it possible if he hadn't seen the work of the red flying man.

 _Shit. We're not gonna make it. We're not_ –

"Faster," Steve barked and picked up his pace until he all but flew. Bucky threw himself into keeping stride alongside him, charging for the hangar even as the building collapsed on top of them.

It fell.

It crumbled.

The yawning, groaning agony of falling deepened as it toppled. As it caved. As it was so close that Bucky felt debris shower his head –

Only for it to stop a second later. The shattered walls, fractured glass windows, and splinters of iron all ceased their descend as a hammock of sparking, writhing scarlet wrapped it in an embrace. Bucky didn't need to glance behind him to know it was Wanda. The kid was incredible. She was holding up a fucking _building_.

Thought left him after that. Bucky pushed himself as fast as he possibly could, skimming beneath the overhanging remains of the watchtower's upper storeys. He couldn't glance behind him to see how the fight ensued, couldn't even spare a second to ensure Steve was at his side. It would have been pointless anyway, because Steve was _always_ there. They flew into the hanger beneath the looming storm of tumbling rock seconds before whatever strength Wanda had to keep it aloft seemed to shatter.

The sound of an avalanche crashing to the ground on Bucky's heels was deafening. But they were through. They were through, but…

"Nat."

Steve's single word was barely a murmur, barely audible, but it would have alerted Bucky to Natasha's presence had he not already noticed it. How was she in the hanger? How had she beaten them there? She must have been en route even before Scott undertook his giant act.

Natasha was a small woman. Short and slender, she was entirely small in he fitted black suit and messy red hair. Bucky wasn't fooled. Not for an instant. He didn't need his memories, both newer and from a time long ago, to know that Natasha Romanoff was dangerous. No one would need it. She breathed deadly like the rest of the world did air. Her simple presence would slow Bucky and Steve more than they could afford to spare.

Except that she wasn't attacking. Natasha stood between them and the waiting plane, feet planted and eyebrows lowered slightly into a sharp line. Her gaze flicked towards Bucky, and he couldn't help but tense slightly, before settling on Steve. "You're not going to stop, are you?"

Steve shook his head. "No."

Natasha sighed in a vexed little huff. "I'm going to regret this," she muttered, raising her hand in a pointing fist.

Bucky instinctively swung his left arm upwards in defence, even as he took half a step towards Steve. An unconscious thought noticed that Steve did the same towards him. It was pointless, however, for the sparking, electric missile that sprung from Natasha's wrist-piece shot directly between them, missing them both entirely.

A grunt drew Bucky's attention sharply over his shoulder, just in time to see the cat-man crumple to his knees. White-blue sparks rippled and darted over the blackness of his suit, seeming to drag him to the ground in spasms.

He must have been fast. Ridiculously fast, to have followed so quickly in their wake, though Bucky already knew as much from their fight. He turned warily back towards Natasha where she was flicking her gaze between he and Steve once more, lips pressed together and arm still raised as though prepared to fire another shot. Why had she done that? Why -?

"Go," she said shortly, jerking her head towards the plane.

Neither Steve nor Bucky needed telling twice. Bucky still skirted around Natasha, half convinced she was deceiving them to shoot them both in the back. She didn't turn to follow their passage, however. As Bucky sprung up the boarding ramp and he turned a final glance over his shoulder, he saw her planted straight and resolute with her back to them. The cat-man was wavering to his feet before her, trembling slightly as he rose. Natasha didn't budge an inch.

Bucky didn't have time to see more than that. Steve had raced ahead of him, mind on the mission in spite of it all, and the ramp was already rising, the engine whirring. Bucky had a moment to see the cat-man make a break for the jet before it hissed closed.

The jet – the quinjet, Steve had called it – was wavering into the air by the time Bucky clambered towards the cockpit. The jet itself wasn't overly large, but it was clearly outfitted in the newest technology that bereft it of the surplus of buttons, cables and flashing lights in exchange for a moderated version. It was sleeker. More refined. It carried a feeling of competency absent in the aircrafts Bucky was more familiar with. He suspected it was likely controlled as much by subtler mechanisms or voice command as physical buttons.

Bucky was fairly certain he would be able to fly it should he have the need, but he didn't bother to offer. It was unnecessary. Steve was already in the pilot seat, helmet discarded and hands darting over the controls as he urged the jet into flight. Bucky lowered himself into the seat just behind him, hunching closely but remaining as silent and unobtrusive as possible. He could have taken the seat beside Steve but… it didn't feel right. Steve didn't comment, directing the jet through the mouth of the hangar just as silently, focused in his muteness.

The jet was fast; that much Bucky could tell with barely glance through the head-up display. He could feel it, knew it, and as he watched the back of Steve's head, the tension in the muscles of his neck and shoulders as he stared resolutely forwards with the determination of his old captaincy, Bucky felt his guilt resurface once more. With all the speed the jet could muster, they were leaving them. They were leaving Steve's friends, his allies, to escape for what was a necessary reason but was pitifully regretful nonetheless. Bucky hunched further into his seat, dropping his gaze down to his fingers as they grasped one another almost painfully tightly.

Bucky didn't have allies. He worked alone. It was a foreign feeling to consider others as anything but negligible back-up that he didn't truly need. That he was _assigned_ but were more like buzzing mosquitos than helpful aid.

This feeling, this guilt and the concern that he felt more as a by-product of Steve's pain once more, was foreign. Bucky didn't like it. He didn't like it at all, even though such trivialities as like and dislike hardly mattered. But this… this was uncomfortable in a way that he hadn't felt before – or at least not for a long, long time. The urge to apologise to Steve was almost a physical need rising within him.

The jet was chased. That much Bucky could discern from the frantic beeps at the control panel and the brief moments of flashing lights. Steve didn't say anything however, and the beeping faded abruptly moments later, disappeared as though the life was cut from them.

Bucky didn't know if that was a good thing or not. These people, those they had to fight, those who had been Steve's comrades – they were his friends too. No one had said as much but there had been a complete lack of desire to inflict permanent damage. That much Bucky had realised and could only agree with. He didn't _want_ to hurt anyone. He didn't want to kill anyone anymore. He'd seen and done too much of that already.

Silence ensued as they flew, the only interruption the monotonous hum of the quinjet's engine as it maintained its steady flight. It endured for an immeasurable time, and for once in his transportation Bucky didn't fall to the familiar habit of counting the minutes. He couldn't bring himself to try, even avoided the urge to do so in an attempt to veer from the inclination that had festered within him from his years as an asset. He didn't _want_ that – not that want ever really mattered, but in this instance at least, Bucky could tamp down on the urge to fall back into his compulsive habits.

Instead, he gazed at his hands, sinking further into his seat. It wasn't comfortable and he probably could have remedied that problem by straightening, by adjusting the belts tying him in place, but Bucky didn't care. He couldn't bring himself to move. Guilt was certainly heavy. Maybe it would have been better to count the minutes?

 _He did it for the mission_ , he thought to himself, the words rising unbidden to his mind. _For the mission. To stop the super soldiers. But…_ Bucky briefly squeezed his eyes closed. _But in the end he did it for me. He didn't have to fight his friends. This is Steve. He could have talked them around if he'd been given the chance. But I…_

Bucky huffed an exhalation of mirthless laughter before he could help himself, shaking his head. What a noble, loyal fool Steve was. He always had been.

"Bucky?"

Steve's murmur drew Bucky's eyes open. He glanced sidelong towards the pilot seat to see Steve's head half-turned towards him, presenting a glimpse of his straight, resolute profile. Was he frowning again? Worried for those they'd left behind? He would be. That was so like Steve; he was incapable of making a decision without considering the consequences, even if he oftentimes ploughed through them and left those consequences to unfold for themselves. Even if it hurt him to plant himself tall and stand by by his resolutions.

All of a sudden Bucky couldn't help himself. "What's gonna happen to your friends?"

Bucky saw Steve's jaw tighten slightly, his broad shoulders shifting in what wasn't quite a hunch but was certainly discomforted. That was all. That was all the response he let himself show. "Whatever it is, we'll deal with it."

 _You shouldn't have to_ , Bucky thought, that unshakeable, painful guilt seizing his chest. _You shouldn't have to deal with it, to choose._ "I don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve," he murmured.

Steve turned his head more fully so that he was nearly meeting Bucky's eyes. The worried crease of his brow still remained, but determination warred against it. Bucky wondered if he even knew he wore such an expression. "What you did all those years – it wasn't you. You didn't have a choice."

 _That's not what I was talking about_ , Bucky thought, though couldn't deny that Steve's words elicited a whole new tide of guilt that he'd been battling since D.C. when his memories had started gushing forth. When his conscience had dragged its shattered self from the dregs of his mind and clambered to the surface once more with renewed vigour. How many people had Bucky killed? He didn't want to count, even if he could remember them all. Every. Single. One. "I know," he said hollowly. "But I did it."

Steve glanced momentarily down towards the control panel, his head bowed. When he raised his gaze, when he turned once more towards Bucky, it was with an expression suddenly cleared however.

"Haven't we all? But it doesn't change anything, Bucky. Not for me. Not with you."

Bucky had to avert his gaze first. It was too painful, too _hard_ , to meet the intensity, the openness, and the compassion in Steve's eyes. It _hurt_.

Maybe he wasn't worth it all. Bucky certainly didn't think he was. But somehow, regardless of it all, Steve stood by his side.


	3. Chapter 3 - A Lifeline

**Chapter 3: A Lifeline**

He ran as fast as he could, which admittedly wasn't very fast. It was probably a good thing that Bucky lived only a few doors down from Steve. That way, at least if Steve collapsed halfway, he could haul himself in either direction.

But Steve wasn't thinking about that. He didn't think about anything but getting to the Barnes' house as soon as possible.

The hour was late, the children playing in the mud and swinging sticks like swords already retreated into the safety and relative warmth of their homes. The scatter of pedestrians that dared to creep from such safety in the backstreets of Brooklyn slunk with hurried steps between buildings, an glance always spared over their hunched shoulders. That was the way of it, the way things always were and likely always would be. It was the way Steve's mother had taught him, too – to always remain on his guard and never let anyone see him slip.

Steve's mother would likely have had a fit had she known that he was wandering about after dark. Especially at the moment, with the rising fear of an oncoming war spreading like a stain across a handkerchief. But Sarah Rogers wasn't in a frame of mind to consider the antics of her son who was old enough to take care of himself. She'd retired to bed hours ago; few days existed where she could last after dark.

Panting, Steve grasped the handrail of the rickety stairwell that lead up to Bucky's house. His feet stomped with heavily for the wavering of his knees. For once, it wasn't merely exertion that caused him sagged upon himself; heartache was the primary driving force this time.

With a clenched fist, Steve banged on Bucky's door. The frame rattled, protesting the abuse. "Bucky? Bucky, open up! Are you alright? Bucky!"

The ensuing silence found Steve all but trembling in place, his heart hammering in his chest for more than it's palpating weakness. He was about to strike the door once more when he heard the scuffle of footsteps, something that sounded like a sigh, and the old lock on the door clicked with a scrape.

The door swung open reluctantly to reveal the unlit darkness within, Bucky leaning slightly with his head resting against the wood.

For a moment, Steve couldn't speak. He hadn't seen his friend in days, hadn't been allowed, despite desperately wanting to. There were people – not relatives but the authorities – who had descended like vultures upon the Barnes' house as soon as word of George Barnes' death was confirmed. He'd allegedly been on a mission with his squad, yet no one knew the exact cause for his death. Nothing but a formal letter of commiseration had been sent.

Steve hadn't seen Bucky since he'd gotten the letter. God _,_ but he'd he wanted to. He wished for nothing more than to be at his friend's side in what wouldn't quite be termed grief for a loving father but was painful nonetheless. Steve wanted to be there for Bucky and Rikki both.

But it was almost as though the house had become a quarantine zone. Steve had tried – tried numerous times – but the man in the uniform stationed at the bottom of the swaying stairs that led to Bucky's house had sent him away. After countless attempts, even Steve's mother, weary with sympathy and grief of her own for George's death, had suggested he just wait a little while.

Just a while. Just a _while_. That 'while' had been the longest two days Steve had ever endured, and that was including those he'd been confined to bed rest.

In that time, Bucky seemed to have changed. It shouldn't have been possible in such a short time, but standing in the doorway, he looked different. Thinner, as though stretched. Exhausted, even, and seemingly weighted by a world-weariness that surpassed even his street savvy know-how that Steve had always teased him about. There were dark smudges under his eyes, his hair looked a mess, and though something as work-a-day as changing clothes each day wasn't something that Steve considered either of them would ever have the liberty of doing, the oversized shirt and slacks that he was dressed in certainly looked worse for wear.

As Steve stared at him, Bucky scrubbed a hand through his hair in a way that only made it messier. He attempted a feeble ghost of his usual bright smile. "Hey, Steve."

"Bucky…" Steve's voice was slightly choked. An upwelling of sorrow for his friend rose within him, and he before he even considered what he was doing, he stepped forwards and wrapping his arms around him. At sixteen, Bucky was taller than him, was distinctly bigger, but as Steve locked his arms around his waist he felt somehow small. Faded and as thin as his weary face. "I'm so sorry."

Bucky's arms immediately clung to Steve in return. It was something that Steve had always liked about him; such displays of affection were scarcely shown between other young men their age, but Bucky didn't seem to care. Which was a good thing, given Steve didn't either. He likely never would. Being able to wrap Bucky in a hug for whatever reason, from affection or dependence or support, was something he wouldn't give up for the world.

"It's alright," Bucky murmured. His head dropped to Steve's shoulder as though his neck was suddenly too tired to hold it up, muffling his words. "Was gonna happen sooner or later, right?"

"Did they… do you know how…?"

Bucky shook his head. "They don't know. Or, more likely, they just won't tell me. 'Spect it was probably something like him making an idiot of himself."

There was no heat in Bucky's words as he rebuked his deceased father. Steve would have almost felt the urge to rebuke him for disrespecting the dead… but it was true. George had been nothing even resembling a father to Bucky and Rikki for years.

"I'm so sorry, Bucky," Steve repeated, pressing his own face into Bucky's shoulder. He didn't say anything else, simply standing and holding. Bucky didn't loosen his hold even slightly.

Darkness had descended completely by the time Bucky finally drew away from him. Steve couldn't even see his face through the gloom. "You should probably be at home, you know."

Steve shrugged. "Mom's fine for the moment. I'll just stay at yours tonight – if that's alright."

"'Course." Bucky nodded, stepped aside and sweeping an arm into the room behind him with less grandeur than he would usually use. He closed the door as Steve stepped past him, immediately fumbling around for what proved to be a gas lamp that splashed murky light across the walls.

Bucky's house wasn't any larger than Steve's, even though three people lived in it rather than Steve's two. Or, more correctly, three people some of the time; George was either at the local bar or away with his squad more often than he was at home. The rooms themselves was minimalistic, bare of much more than a sagging couch that Steve knew to be all but bereft of springs, a narrow table and mismatched chairs, something that resembled a kitchen as dismally as Steve's own. The single doorway leading to the cluttered bedroom and adjoining lavatory was unlit and half-closed.

Steve took himself to the couch as Bucky made his way to the kitchen, scavenging through the cupboards with a listlessness that bellied the offer of his following words. "You want something to eat? I don't know that anything I've got will really be any good, but I can try and make you up something if you'd like."

"No, I'm fine," Steve replied, watching as Bucky absently picked up a mug, peered unseeingly inside for a moment, then lowered it again. "I already had something."

"'S good," Bucky muttered, leaning against the chipped kitchen counter. "What I've got would probably taste like shit anyway." He seemed to speak more to himself than to Steve.

Steve felt the pain of seeing his friend so melancholic well within him and seep from his chest outward in an all-consuming wave. He'd never seen Bucky like this before; not even when his mother had died so many years ago, and he'd been nothing but a child then. For some reason, this Bucky was worse than the sobbing, confused, and frantically angry boy who had charged into Steve's house blubbering of Winifred Barnes' death. Steve fathomed that this kind of pain would be harder for Bucky to shake. It seemed so… insubstantial.

He didn't know where to begin, didn't know what to say. Empty words of comfort rose in Steve's mind – "I'm so sorry for your loss" and "If you need me, if there's anything I can do…" – but he discarded them immediately. It wasn't right; not to say them Bucky as he turned to lean back against the counter, facing Steve without really looking at him. It wasn't right to offer such platitudes, something so meaningless. Steve hadn't expected George's death to hit Bucky so hard; he'd all but ostracised himself from his largely absent father in the past years.

So he didn't speak of it. Steve chose not to mention George at all. Instead, sparing a glance towards the darkly silent bedroom, he gestured with a tilt of his head. "Is Rikki already in bed?"

If possible, Bucky's face somehow grew even wearier. He dropped his gaze to his interlocking fingers, brow creasing in something that wasn't a frown. "No, she's… she's not here."

Steve frowned. "Is she staying at a friend's place, or –?"

Bucky shook his head. "No. No, she's…" He paused, to clear his throat, blinking rapidly. "She's gone, Steve. She's…"

Steve stared. He could feel his eyes widen at the possibilities of Bucky's statement and couldn't do a thing to stop them. "What do you mean?"

Lips pressing together so tightly they turned white, Bucky paused for a long moment before replying. "I… the people – the uniforms who came to tell us about dad and all. They said she had to go to a home or something, 'cause she was too little still for just me to look after. They said they had an obligation to look after her or something 'cause dad was in the army."

Steve breathed in a sharp inhalation. "What –? No, she can't –"

"I told them she wouldn't," Bucky interrupted him. Steve thought he barely heard his own words. It was as though he didn't even realise he was speaking anymore, least of all to Steve. "Rikki doesn't want to be in some home, or live with a replacement family or – or anything." He blinked rapidly once more, shoulders hunching as his attention seemed to focus entirely upon his clasping fingers. "We don't have much, you know, but I said I – if she wanted to, then maybe she could…"

Steve held his tongue, regardless of how much he wanted to speak. He remained silent until he was sure that Bucky was at a loss, that he wouldn't continue unless prompted. "Where's she gone?"

Bucky shook his head, though less in denial than as though to draw himself from his thoughts. "Virginia. There's this school there, a boarding school. It's cheap, but not a shithole. We talked about it, with the uniforms and everything. They said…" Bucky trailed off, blinking fast in what Steve realised must be an attempt to stave off tears. He nodded in what would have been a casual gesture in any other instance. "Yeah, so that's that. All wrapped up and – and Rikki's gone off to school."

A beat passed between them, a thrumming moment of pause – and then Steve was on his feet and crossing the room. He paused at Bucky's side, peering at his downturned face before reaching a hand to his shoulder. His fingers squeezed tightly enough to feel the bones squeak beneath the threadbare fabric. "Is Rikki alright with that?"

Bucky nodded, pursing his lips. "Yeah, she said she's fine. She can come visit sometimes, apparently. Not often, since its not exactly cheap to come back to the city, but…"

Steve nodded his understanding, and they fell into silence once more. A long silence that stretched and stretched, seeming all the longer for the questions that arose in Steve's mind. Rikki had been sent away? From Bucky? The notion was horrifying. Bucky and Rikki had been each other's crutch for years, and Steve had _known_ that Bucky wouldn't give up his sister for anything. That were he able to he would ensure he stuck with her every step of the way for as long as she needed him.

It was true that boarding school might be the best place for her – surely better than a home or the potentially disastrous foster homes that so few people in their part of the world survived without scars – but Bucky would have gone with her, even if it was all the way in Virginia. The thought hurt Steve to even consider, was painful to think of his best and oldest friend being so far away but… but surely for Rikki…

"Why'd you do that, Bucky?" he murmured. Leaning back against the counter, he squeezed Bucky's shoulder once more. "It's so far away. Why are you…?"

Bucky wouldn't look at him. He still seemed to be fighting tears, and Steve found it difficult to swallow the urge to tell him to just let them fall. No one would see. No one but Steve, and what did it matter if Steve saw? Bucky had certainly seen him at his worst countless times. "I… it was… the fees weren't too bad. Good even. And…"

"You could go with her," Steve said, nearly biting off his tongue with the need to silence himself. He didn't want Bucky to ever leave was like a physical ache. "I'm sure she'd like to go alone. You can have –"

"I can't," Bucky interrupted. He shook his head curtly, lips pursing in a way that would have been petulant in any other instance. "I can't leave."

"Why can't you -?"

"Because I can't just leave you, Steve."

Whatever words Steve might have felt the need to voice died in his throat. What? What did Bucky –? Did he just –? "Why? Why would you…?"

Finally, Bucky raised his gaze from his hands that squeezed one another like vices. His shoulders remained hunched, his glance barely more than a flicker that revealed the tears he withheld. They seemed all the more pronounced in the spitting glow of the gas lamp. "'Cause I can't leave you alone, Steve."

"I'm not alone." Steve's voice was quiet, more subdued than he'd expected it to be. "I've got –"

"Your mom's not gonna stick around for long," Bucky murmured, the pain in his voice denying the bluntness of his words. Even so, Steve couldn't suppress a flinch. He thought he might have felt one from Bucky too where he still clasped his shoulder. "She's not, Steve. No one 'round these parts beats TB. It's a miracle she's stuck it out this long."

Steve felt his throat seize, struggled to swallow through the constriction, and failed. He always avoided thinking about his mother and the tuberculosis that weighed her down more and more every day, but that didn't deny the truth of the matter, or of Bucky's words. He didn't bother trying either. "I'll be fine," he croaked hoarsely. "It'll be… I'll be fine on my own."

"You don't have to be," Bucky sighed, and there was so much weariness in his voice, in his expression as he turned his gaze back to his fingers, that it drew Steve slightly from the queasiness he felt whenever he thought of his mother. "That's the thing, Steve. You really don't have to be. I'm – 'cause I'm sticking around."

"But Rikki –"

"Rikki would rip my balls off if I told her I'd go with her rather than stay with you." Bucky's crooked smile was rueful. He glanced at Steve sidelong once more. "Not gonna lie, that's probably the main reason I'm not going. I value certain parts of my anatomy, you know?"

Steve couldn't even attempt to smile in return. It was too much of a struggle with what he now understood – or what he thought he did. Bucky might claim otherwise but Steve wasn't a fool. Bucky truly was staying behind for him, even if he had to let Rikki go to do so. There were no prospects in Brookyln, and certainly not in their area; lifting crates at the docks wasn't a life. But such was inevitable for the dregs of their city, those that tumbled from the threshold of school with few skills and nothing but bad reputation to their name. There was the army – but at least for Steve it would be next to impossible for him to sign up, he knew. Maybe for Bucky, but…

 _You could have gotten out. You idiot, you could have gone somewhere else_.

But Steve couldn't say the words aloud, even if he wanted to – that Bucky _could_ have gone somewhere else, and that even if there was no certainty of it being better, it _could_ have been.

He couldn't speak the words, however, because the tightness in his throat stopped him. More than that, the deep-seated, selfish part of him that was sagging in gratitude, nearly sobbing in relief that when his mother died he wouldn't be alone, stilled his tongue.

"Bucky…" he was all he managed.

"Don't try and tell me otherwise, Steve," Bucky said quietly. He hadn't lifted his chin again but still managed to stare at Steve nonetheless. "You'd be a right bastard if you tried. I get to make my own choices, yeah?"

Steve swallowed thickly. His hand on Bucky's shoulder squeezed in an attempt at reassurance, at gratitude, but it felt more like he was clinging to a lifeline. _It's selfish. It's so selfish of me, but…_ "Yeah. Yeah, I've got it. I –" His head slumped of its own accord onto Bucky's shoulder. "Thanks, Bucky."

Bucky shrugged beneath Steve's head. "Don't mention it. I'm with you till the end of the line, Steve."

Steve closed his eyes against the dingy room before them, against the feeble orange glow of the gas lamp. He didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve the love and loyalty that Bucky gave him time and time again, unshakeable and persistent through it all. Not once had Bucky faltered in his loyalty. Not once had he left Steve's side even for a moment, and definitely not when he needed him. When Bucky said he'd be with him till the end, Steve believed him wholeheartedly. Offering equal amounts of loyalty in return was the least Steve could do. He _owed_ Bucky, would always owe him.

Funny, how Steve considered that, for some reason, debt didn't feel like the main reason.

* * *

Bucky blacked out. Momentarily, just for a split second, because _fuck_ it _hurt!_

His heartbeat thundered in his temple. His breath came heavily. He could feel the knuckles of his hand throb from the split of his callouses. Dizziness sent him wavering where he'd fallen to his knees on the ground, but he managed to maintain his balance. Just.

But _fuck_ it hurt _so much_. No pain quite as great since… since the last time he'd lost his _fucking arm_.

Bucky's vision cleared with just enough time for him do draw his blurred gaze down to the sparking, splintered stump that had been his metal arm. To the hair-thin cables torn in half and left hanging, the jagged edges of vibranium smoking and charred. He could still feel it, could still feel the arm as if it was still there, and it fucking _hurt_. Not just the arm, but in his spine, shooting blinding pain down his left side, rocking him in place. It hurt, a burning, aching pain, and –

And he didn't have time to consider more than that. Bucky barely had a chance to glance down at his arm, to catch a glimpse of Tony behind him before the white-light laser exploded towards him once more. It struck Bucky in his side as a searing burn, bodily flung him to flip backwards. A whirlwind of motion, the dizzy, whirring daze of _too fast_ and _which way,_ and he was crashing him to the ground in a heap. His breath gushed forth from his lungs as his back slapped to the icy concrete. Bucky's vision blackened once more.

The pain. The pain was… pain was something he was familiar with. Comfortingly familiar, it was a comfort even as Bucky screamed in the agony of electrocuted nerves, blossoming bruises, and snapping breaks. That pain wouldn't last. It never lasted. Such was the curse of his unnatural rejuvenation; he healed fast enough for the renewed bout of pain to strike him afresh.

But this was different. This pain, reminiscent of that Bucky recalled with blurred memory and hazy semi-consciousness, was different entirely. It still felt as though his arm was there, but what he could feel was searing torture. The artificial nerves that linked the remains of the metal arm to Bucky's nervous system were on fire, the flames spreading through him and eating him alive. He could hardly think, couldn't even contemplate moving. It hurt _so fucking bad_.

Bucky didn't like this pain. It wasn't comforting at all. He wanted it to _stop_.

To stop, stop, _stop – stop – stop –_

But it didn't. Bucky couldn't plead, but even if he had he wouldn't. It wouldn't make a difference. No matter how much it hurt it would never stop. It never had.

Somewhere through the mounting, burning pain, Bucky reached for Steve. His body screamed at moving, but he reached for him nonetheless. Steve, who was the only person in this goddamn universe, the only person he'd ever known, who had cared enough to try and make the pain stop. Steve was always there, just as Bucky would be there for him, and in that moment he didn't care. He didn't care that he was a danger to his friend. He didn't care that he was so filthy and stained and broken that he didn't deserve a second of Steve's time. For once, even the physical need to just be _away_ from people was gone, shunted aside, because the dangling lifeline had been sighted.

Bucky didn't care. He didn't care if it was wrong, if it would make him nauseous to clasp that lifeline. He wanted Steve _now_.

But Steve was fighting for his life. Fighting for Bucky.

That much Bucky could recall through his pain-induced blindness. He couldn't move, couldn't shift from his back because every twitch triggered a cascade of sharp volts tumbling down his shoulder and every inch of his spin. But he could remember that. Steve was fighting, Bucky had been fighting and Steve – Steve needed his help.

Bucky needed Steve. Needed him for _him_ , as he hadn't needed anyone ever. But right then, Steve needed Bucky too.

With a Herculean effort, Bucky grappled with the mind-numbing, debilitating pain to thrust it aside. To see. To know what was happening. How long had he been immobilised by pain? How long since Tony had blasted him into uselessness? Bucky wasn't sure, but somehow Steve had been holding the iron man at bay. That much Bucky knew, because he was still alive.

Gasping through the blood that he could feel tricking from his nose, Bucky blinked the blindness from his eyes. He was upside down. Upside down? No, that was the roof. He _was_ still on his back, could feel the coldness of ice as a sensation so negligible to absolutely everything else that consumed his body. And he could hear.

It was muffled at first, but in seconds of struggling to focus, Bucky sharpened the sounds. The rising whir of Tony's repulsor beams accompanying the flashes as they exploded from his hands. The sparks and vibrancy reflecting off Steve's shield. The smack of fists, metallic and gloved, as they crunched against solid body. Feet scuffled, and a heavy weight crashed against the wall.

A heavier smack. A groan that was barely audible but Bucky _knew_ to be Steve's.

"Stay down," Bucky heard Tony's warped voice order. "Final warning."

Bucky would have laughed at any other moment. Would have if he could, if the prospect was anything but agonising to consider. There was no better way to incite Steve into a fight then to demand he submit. The lolling, wincing turn Bucky managed, a bare tilt of his head in the direction of Tony's voice, of Steve's pants, saw Steve climbing to his feet. His face was a mess beneath the line of his helmet, blood smearing his chin amidst the sweat and grime. Scorch marks marred his suit, burned through in places and blackened in others. Stains of wetness from blood and snow alike seeped through the blue, colouring the white strips at his torso bloody.

But Steve stood. He stood, panting and unshakeable, arms rising in fists before him in place of his shield. "I can do this all day," he huffed.

And he could. Bucky knew he really could. Steve had have stood tall and alone even when he was half the size he was now, planting himself before the bullies of his past and persisting even if it nearly killed him. He likely would have, too, if Bucky hadn't stepped in to help. Steve would stand till the end, would stand alone, but…

 _You don't have to._

The whir of Tony's repulsor beams was like a trigger to Bucky. He threw himself from his immobility as fast as he possibly could, so fast that the pain screaming through his body almost couldn't keep up. His right hand – his only hand – grasped Tony's foot and with all the strength left within him, Bucky _pulled_.

He didn't know if it did any good. It could have thrown Tony across the other side of the room or done nothing at all. It could have saved Steve or been a useless attempt. Bucky didn't know, because he blacked out immediately. His mind shorted as lances of pain erupted across every surface of his skin, from the epicentre of his shoulder, raking cords of flaming torture down his back and up his neck to his brain. He might have cried out; Bucky didn't know. He couldn't hear, hadn't the consciousness to tell.

When he did manage to swim from the darkness of his mind, it was to find Steve above him. Steve – _not dead, he wasn't dead_ – reaching towards him with an expression of exhaustion that was more than physical visible on his face. Blood still smeared his chin, but he was at least carrying his shield now, which meant… was Tony…?

Bucky hurt. He hurt all over, but it was as though his brief moments, the seconds or minutes or hours of unconsciousness, had ferociously tamped down upon that pain and smothered it with a snarl. It was debilitating, but not utterly so. When Steve reached for him, when he grabbed Bucky's remaining arm and hauled him to his feet, Bucky managed not to blank out. He managed to bite his tongue on the groan that threatened to spill forth.

His feet wavered beneath him as he rose from his recline, and it was a blessing in that moment that Steve was there, that he tugged Bucky's arm around his shoulders, dropping his own around his waist to keep him standing. Bucky was certain he would have fallen if he hadn't. He certainly wouldn't have been able to walk as Steve's dragging, staggering step urged him to.

"That shield doesn't belong to you," a voice panted from behind them. "You don't deserve it. My father made that shield.

Bucky didn't turn. He couldn't have even had he wanted to, and not only because of the pain that shrieked through his body. The pain in Tony's voice was almost as profound, as mournful and hateful, and just a little desperate. That unshakeable guilt that clung to Bucky welled within him once more, elbowing his pain aside and making it that much harder to stand.

He'd killed Tony's parents. He hadn't wanted to, hadn't the mind to tell himself not to, but he had anyway.

Bucky could remember them – he could remember all of them – and he remembered _them_. He'd killed them in cold blood, just as he had so many others, and Tony… he was right to hate him. Bucky left destruction behind every one of his steps. It was an effort not to shudder in self-loathing at the thought, for Bucky not to withdraw his arm from Steve's shoulders in withdrawal. He would surely have sprawled to the ground if he did.

Steve paused in step at Tony's words. He didn't look behind him either; that much Bucky could make out from his periphery, from where his head hung forwards of its own accord and his eyes were half-blinded by blurriness and his lank fringe. He could make out Steve's weariness in his expression, that exhaustion something more than physical, and the moment his eyes briefly closed.

Then he heard the dull _thunk_ of the shield falling to the ground.

Steve didn't say a word. He didn't turn towards Tony either, but simply tightened his arm around Bucky and more than half carry him from the cement ditch at the bottom of the base chute. He did when they were forced to scale the ladder; Bucky's feet fumbled upon the rungs in a way that hardly even frustrated him for the distraction of his throbbing head, the whole-body shocks and aches. Steve hauled him up after him with similar wordlessness.

Bucky didn't know how they made it out of the base. The climb passed in flashes. He caught brief glimpses when he could lift his head – the dimly lit chute, the ice-caked capsules of dead super-soldiers, the muted flashes of electronic beeping – before they were outside once more. Out in the cold, and the whiteness, the sharp, clean, crisp air chilling on the back of Bucky's throat. He could hardly breathe at all through the spasms tightening his back, the seizing in his chest, but that much he could discern.

That, and the black-suited, helmet-less figure of the cat-man. The King of Wakanda himself, or so Steve had said.

Steve paused in step but feet from the yawning doors to the base. Wind whipped around them, the chill licking every inch of bared skin, but Bucky barely felt it. What he did feel were Steve's fingers dig into his waist, almost sharply, in the only display of concern that he let himself show. He shifted in step slightly, his stance widening, and though Bucky didn't look he could almost feel him raise a fist in warning, in readiness.

The King didn't take a step towards them. He didn't lunge in attack, or flex his fingers to the _snick_ of bared claws. He didn't even appear to be on the verge of attack as far as Bucky's conditioned attentiveness could discern despite his bone-deep weariness and simmering pain. He stared at them both with unblinking dark eyes, first Steve, then Bucky, then Steve once more.

If it was to end in a fight, Bucky knew he would win. Even two against one, the King would overwhelm them in a matter of seconds. Or at least he would Bucky. Steve might stand a chance, but…

"Steve," Bucky muttered, his fingers digging briefly into Steve's shoulder in the aching need to _never let go_. But he did. Bucky unlocked his fingers with a struggle, dropping his arm from Steve's shoulder and sagging.

Steve ignored Bucky's gesture. He couldn't have missed the intention behind it, but instead of releasing Bucky in turn, his arm around Bucky's waist only seemed to tighten, compensating for the support the grasp Bucky had held around his shoulders absented. "Don't even think about it," he said in curt reply.

"Steve –"

"I'm with you, Bucky. Till the end of the line."

Bucky couldn't help but stare up at him through blurred eyes. He hurt – hurt and felt more exhausted than he had in a long time. Enough that he would comfortably collapse in the freezing snow and fall prey to sleep. But he stared at Steve, feeling his temple throb with a different kind of pain. _Till the end of the line… Always._

"I will not fight you."

Bucky turned his groggy attention back towards the King, to where Steve hadn't withdrawn his gaze even for a second. Steve spoke the words that he couldn't seem to manage. "What do you mean?"

The King shook his head slowly. "This fight. It is not my intention. I was… misled."

"I could have told you that," Steve said, his tone turned biting and almost cruel. He must have been exhausted, angry, as weary of it all as Bucky, for him to so discard politeness like that. Bucky had always thought he would be mild-mannered even to his own executioner.

The King didn't appear incensed by Steve's words in the slightest. He simply bowed his head in that same measured slowness. "You could have. Yet though I am now aware, I would not have listened. Not before."

"But now?"

"Now… I have reason to believe my assumptions were ill-considered." He paused, before ruefully repeating, "Misled."

Bucky and Steve exchanged a glance. It was loaded with questions that Bucky's addled mind couldn't make sense of. Though he couldn't quite bring himself to loop his arm back around Steve's shoulders – it didn't feel _right_ – Bucky slumped against him nonetheless. Slumped and nearly sagged to the ground in relief at the connotations of the King's words, his eyes sliding closed. Steve's arm was all that kept him upright.

Steve clearly reached the same conclusions as Bucky. "Then what do you want? I can't offer you answers. Not now."

"It is not answers I seek," the King replied. "I have learned enough. I wish to repay the debt my assumptions have produced."

"Repay how?" Bucky muttered, opening his eyes to squint once more. It was getting harder and harder to remain aware.

He hadn't even been sure that his words were loud enough to be heard, but the King's cat-ears clearly caught them. He tilted his head slightly in a gesture over his shoulder, in the direction of the quinjet Bucky and Steve had pulled in on and to a smaller, sleeker model tucked behind it. Bucky hadn't even noticed it. "Follow me," he said, before turning and walking in clean, sharp steps back towards the jets.

There was so much about the situation that could go wrong. So much that Bucky would have considered anyone a fool to follow a man who'd offered as much after his vengeance of days before. The King had been trying to kill Bucky; no one in their right might could discard such blatant hatred.

Or at least no one who wasn't desperate.

But for some reason, perhaps simply his weariness lending him resignation and that very desperation, Bucky couldn't argue with the offer. Clearly neither could Steve. Perhaps he too had simply decided that it wasn't worth the effort of resistance, that any 'repayment' would be better than a fight. He barely spared Bucky half a glance before readjusting his arm around him and following in the King's footsteps.

Bucky didn't struggle follow because he didn't have to. Steve didn't let go of him but instead all but carried him the whole way.


	4. Chapter 4 - A Moment In Time

**Chapter 4: Moments In Time**

He couldn't see straight. It could have been because of the darkness, but it wasn't. It could have been because he'd had a killer of a headache all day, too, but Steve knew that wasn't it either. He wasn't so oblivious as to believe the excuses he could present to anyone who cared to ask.

"You've always been a light-weight," Bucky muttered at his side not for the first time. "Why you feel the need to go straight for the hard stuff every time I'll never know."

Steve stumbled slightly as he shrugged, was barely even aware of the arm Bucky flung out immediately as if to grab him. "No point in drinking if you can't – if you don't get drunk."

Bucky snorted. "That's because that's the only way you ever drink."

There was more than the hint of a reprimand to the words. Bucky was about as straight as they came when liquor was concerned. He would have a beer with the boys should the occasion arise, but one was his limit. It was to be expected, Steve supposed, after his father's issues. Steve always felt more than a touch guilty when he lost his sobriety because of it. It was probably one of the reasons he drunk at all so rarely.

But today was a special occasion. Steve would only ever drink when he had to. When he needed to. It was dangerous to drink at all, what with his messed-up system and the chemist of meds he inhaled daily, but today… Steve had needed it. It even made the constant pains in his body a little less demanding, and the worst of those pains in his chest a little easier to bear.

The street leading down to Steve's house was all but empty. He caught the echo of footfalls at the far end of the road before its owner disappeared around the corner, but otherwise there was nothing but gloomy shadows and hollow silence. It was always best, essential, even, to walk with company after dark, especially around Steve's neighbourhood. He might not be one to back down from a fight but it wasn't like he would actively seek them out.

Bucky followed at Steve's side and half a step behind, as though keeping him in his sights. Steve hardly noticed that, either, except with a passing glance. His gaze was turned down to his feet, as much in a struggle to keep his steps straight as to avoid making eye contact with his friend. Guilty he might feel, but on that night, with the ache in his chest that was worse than physical seizing him so sharply and painfully, he couldn't endure without a fuzzy mind. And Bucky, despite his own compunctions on the matter, didn't chide him. Or not mostly.

It had been a year since Steve's mother had died. A year exactly, as the weight in Steve's chest reminded him all too fiercely. In that time, he'd managed well enough of his own. He and Bucky both, really, for within a few short weeks, Steve had deduced that there was no way in hell he'd be able to keep his rundown shack of a house on the feeble wage his attempts at work pulled in. Certainly not on top of all of his medication. He wouldn't manage it, and blessedly, to Steve's never-ending guilt, Bucky had been the one to throw offer him a hand. Just as he always was.

"Why don't you just move in with me?" he suggested, not two months into Steve's solitary lifestyle. It wasn't the first time he'd asked. "It'll be easier."

Steve couldn't help but shake his head, even as he saw sense to the suggestion. His pride wouldn't let him weigh Bucky down more than he already had. Bucky had enough to deal with; he was still single-handedly putting Rikki through school, to say nothing of juggling his own bills and jobs. Impossibly, he'd somehow managed that alongside keeping his father's old house. Steve hadn't a clue how he'd done it, and wasn't entirely sure he should ask. He wanted to – it scared him a little that he didn't know – but he wouldn't. Couldn't.

"Thanks, Buck," he said, "but I'm alright on my own. I can manage."

Bucky sighed, frowning in a way that was more sad than angry. "How many times do I have to tell you, Steve? You don't have to be?"

"But your –"

"Consider it selfishness on my part, then," Bucky interrupted him. "It'll be easier for me too if I've got someone to share the rent with. Help me out on this one, Steve. Yeah?"

Steve wasn't an idiot. He might not know how Bucky managed to get by but he knew he managed. He'd found a niche for himself, enough to make ends meet, and though he spoke about joining the army as an out, it wasn't as necessary as Steve's desire was. Steve might want to do the same for other reasons too, to be useful, to defend and protect, but he couldn't deny that the base wage was better than what he was on now.

So Steve had agreed. He'd been prepared to leave the house he and his mother had shared for so long, but Bucky had taken the need away from him by moving in with him instead. "I never much liked dad's place anyway," was all he said by way of explanation. Steve could only thank him once more. He felt like he was always thanking Bucky for something or other.

The familiar steps up to their house seemed to arise out of nowhere. It was perhaps luck more than any particular intent on Steve's part that had him finding his way.

Or maybe it was Bucky. It was probably Bucky.

At some point that Steve hadn't noticed through the haziness clouding his mind, Bucky had dropped a hand to his shoulder and seemed to be steering him all but steering his step. His fingers slipped from Steve's shoulder as he dug his keys from a pocket and fought with the rusted old lock before shouldering the door open.

It was dark inside. Steve stood stock still on the threshold for a moment, wavering and fighting to blink his night blindness into a semblance of clarity. "I'll get the light," he mumbled, scrubbing his eyes and nearly stumbling as he made to cross the room.

"Actually, I'd rather we didn't die in a house fire tonight," Bucky replied from behind him, a hand reaching out to grab Steve's shoulder once more and halt him in place as much. Or maybe it was to steady him; Steve wasn't sure. "I'll get it."

"I'm fine, Buck –"

"Haul arse into bed, Steve," Bucky interrupted him. "Just sleep it off, yeah?"

He gave Steve a gentle nudge – gentler than Steve deserved – towards the direction he assumed must be the bedroom but couldn't be sure for his grogginess. Bucky's hand slipped from his shoulder a moment later, and as Steve followed the direction of his propulsion, the gas lamp spluttered into feeble brightness behind him.

Steve barely spared the living room a cursory glance but to avoid the couch, to nearly trip over a chair, as he made his way towards the bedroom. It was smothered in thick darkness, but Bucky, following Steve with the murky gas-lamp in hand, illuminated the way. Almost too brightly, in Steve's delayed opinion. Why did it have to be so bright?

Steve didn't bother to undress as he staggered across the bedroom, not even to slip his shoes off. He slumped face first onto the blankets with a huff, nose pressed against the thin pillow that was little more than a deflated double-fold of fabric. The world seemed too difficult to contemplate in that moment, too demanding. It was either ignore it all or fall prey to thoughts of his mother, of her final days, bedridden and apologising for leaving Steve, for not doing more. Of her funeral that followed barely a week later and the plot she held in the graveyard next to Steve's father.

He didn't want to think about any of that. Not ever. So instead, he buried his face in the pillow and squeezed his eyes shut against the headache that only seemed to grow more demanding as it throbbed in his temple.

The weight of Bucky dropping onto the end of the bed drew Steve's rapid decline into unconsciousness to a halt. "Come on, at least get your shoes off," he said, tugging at one of Steve's feet before he'd even given Steve the chance to do it for himself.

Struggling to push himself upright, Steve peered hazily over his shoulder. He had to squint against the gas lamp's abusive light to see at all. "Bucky? Hey, what are you -?"

"Listen up when I'm talking to you, yeah?" Bucky said. He didn't glance towards Steve as he tugged one shoe off. "You'll get crap all through your bed."

"Not like it would make much difference," Steve muttered, trying and failing to sit himself up and take over from where Bucky had begun. His attempt amounted to an unremarkable flop back onto the hard mattress. "Sheets are shit anyway."

"Hey, don't swear," Bucky chided, entirely overlooking his hypocrisy. Bucky was like that. He seemed to think Steve innocent in many ways, more so than would be possible for anyone who lived in their part of town, and that seemed to pertain to cursing, too. He similarly seemed to feel it was his role to protect that perceived innocence. Steve couldn't bring himself to complain; Bucky had always been protecting him in some way or another. It would have been disrespecting that protection if he tried.

Steve fell silent and, though he felt sheepishly guilty for his uselessness, didn't struggle or protest at Bucky's insistence to relieve him of his shoes. He simply watched at Bucky plucked at his laces, head bowed slightly to hide most of his face in shadow. The light reflected just slightly off the shininess of his hair, darkening the blackness of his jacket.

Steve could stare at Bucky in silent attentiveness forever. There was something just so calming, even captivating, about watching the slow flutter of eyelashes, the slight pursing of his lips in detached concentration, the tilt of his head as he glanced over his shoulder to toss Steve's shoe to the floor. Bucky himself was more simply something to look at but… in those moments, Steve felt lucky that he was the only one around to see him.

He didn't utter a word when Bucky shifted in his seat to untuck the blankets from around his bed, either. He rose and shifted, tugged and pulled at the blankets with practiced motions, as though he'd cared for Steve countless times before – which he had. He always had. Even before Steve's mother had died, Bucky was always there for him, always offering a hand to help when he didn't have to. Perhaps it was some of that paternal instinct he'd grown from looking after Rikki, but for whatever reason, he seemed so natural in his proficiency.

Bucky always preached how Steve was the goodly one, how he was the purer, the kinder, the more caring. If only he could see himself as Steve saw him.

"I'm sorry, Bucky," Steve found himself mumbling, his voice muffled by sleepiness that hadn't quite set in.

Bucky paused in the act of drawing the thin sheets to Steve's shoulders. His eyes, darkened by the shadows, met Steve's gaze for a moment before he offered him a small, crooked smile. "'S fine."

"No, it's not. I shouldn't be… I shouldn't have…"

"It's fine, Steve," Bucky repeated, tucking the sheets around him as though he were a child rather than a perfectly capable eighteen-year-old who had foolishly gotten himself shit-faced drunk. "If anyone could understand it'd be me, right?"

"You'd never do this to yourself," Steve said, frowning.

Bucky settled himself on the edge of Steve's bed once more, at his side rather than the end this time. He hitched a shoulder in a shrug. "Maybe not quite so smashed that I can't get into bed myself, but…"

"You've never been drunk in your life," Steve muttered.

"That you know of," Bucky replied with a chuckle, the amusement in his tone dampening the fallacy of his words. Steve might not accompany Bucky every time he visited, but he was sure of that much, at least.

"I'm sorry, Bucky," he mumbled once more.

"Will you stop saying that," Bucky said with a sigh. "Why are you always apologising?"

"Did you ever think that – that maybe I meant it?"

"'Course you do. But you don't have to tell me over and over again. I already know."

"You shouldn't… you shouldn't have to put up with me," Steve said, squeezing his eyes closed.

Bucky fell silent. It wasn't until Steve opened his eyes to squint up at him that he replied. The smile had faded from his face. "Wish you'd stop saying that, too," he said quietly.

"I mean it."

"I know you do. That's why I wish you'd stop saying it."

Steve didn't have anything to say to that. He was tired, but he didn't want to sleep. Not then. He didn't want to just slip into a doze while Bucky sat so obligingly at his side, holding his tongue upon the reprimands that Steve more than deserved. It was no excuse that it was the anniversary of his mother's death. Bucky had never let himself go like that. It wasn't right that Steve would be the exception.

But weariness was dragging him down. Steve could barely keep his eyes open, couldn't maintain control of his tongue even had he wanted to. "I'm sorry, Bucky…"

Bucky was silent for a long moment more before he offered another chuckle. It sounded just a little off, a little forced. "I told you, stop apologising to me. If you're gonna say sorry to anyone, say it to the girls that we had to leave behind at the bar."

"That you had to leave behind, you mean."

"I meant both of us, actually. I think that Maggie girl had a thing for you."

Steve snorted. It came out louder than he'd expected. "She had a thing for you, in case you didn't notice. I was just a stepping stone. Besides, her name was Mary, not Maggie."

"Who cares? If she's not interested in you, then ditch her. She can hang out to dry," Bucky shrugged, entirely overlooking Steve's other words. Typical.

"Sorry to –" he began.

"Stop apologising."

"Sorry to drag you 'way, Buck," Steve said, overriding Bucky's interruption. "You prob'ly would have had a better night if I wasn't there."

"We went out for you in the first place. For your mom."

"Still would have been better if you'd... if you'd just gone alone."

Bucky clasped a hand around his shoulder, squeezing just slightly. The touch, the soft smile the touched his lips once more, was soothing. Had Steve any hopes of staying awake for longer, they would have rapidly faded in the face of that expression, of that simple touch of comfort and affection.

"You're going about this the wrong way," Bucky said. "You should've told Maggie –"

"Mary."

"- that you were feeling down in the dumps. She'd have given you a kiss at the least."

Steve snorted once more, even as his eyes struggled to stay peeled. "A pity kiss."

"Better than nothing."

"Maybe," Steve said, closing his eyes with a sigh. The blackness of the inside of his eyelids was soothing too, the image of Bucky's calming smile swimming as an image in the forefront of his mind. "It would be nice to kiss a girl just once."

Bucky was silent for a moment. The only indication that he was still at Steve's side at all was the warm weight of his fingers still curled around his shoulder. When he finally spoke, it was in a hushed voice. "You've never kissed a girl?"

"You seriously have to ask?" Steve mumbled. He barely even attended to the words that slipped from his lips, halfway into sleep already. "What girl would… would want to kiss me?"

"That's the most stupid-arse thing I've ever heard you say," Bucky said. "And you've said some pretty stupid shit."

"Thanks. Appreciate it."

"You're fantastic, Steve."

"I'm sickly."

"So?"

"And short."

"And?"

Steve felt a faint smile well with Bucky's irrational persistence. It was stupid of Bucky to be so insistent, but just as with Steve's supposed innocence, he always seemed ready to preach of Steve's attributes. Had Steve ever needed to boost his self-esteem, Bucky could always be counted on to help him. Even if his words were ridiculous, he somehow managed to sound genuine nonetheless.

"Don't think most girls would take a liking to someone like me," Steve sighed.

"Then… maybe you're just not looking in the right direction?"

Steve didn't know what Bucky meant by that. Maybe he would have had he been more awake, or had his eyes been open to see the expression Bucky wore that had likely changed fromwhat still hung suspended before Steve's closed eyelids. But Steve couldn't seem to find the energy to peel his eyes open, let alone ask. All he could say was, "Thanks, Bucky. You're… the best."

Then he let himself go. He let himself drift and fall towards sleep to the throbbing in his head that was just short of painful yet created a lulling rhythm nonetheless. Tomorrow would be better. Steve wouldn't have to spend the day thinking about his mother, or looking for distractions, or drowning himself in cheap grain alcohol to smother melancholic thoughts. Tomorrow would be…

It was just on the cusp of sleep that he felt it. Warmth, the brush of breath caressing his lips moments before a gentle pressure touched where that breath lightly tickled. It was soft, a slow motion, almost tentative. It lasted barely long enough for Steve to realise what it was.

A kiss. He'd been… Had he…?

What?

"Sorry it's not from a girl, Steve," Bucky's voice murmured just on the edge of Steve's hearing. "But you deserve that much at least. That and more. If only everyone else would see…"

If Bucky continued, Steve wasn't sure. He couldn't maintain his grasp upon consciousness any longer, regardless of how he might wish to, how he wanted to blink himself awake to pose question in his confusion. To pursue that line of thought and ask Bucky… to ask him…

But he couldn't. Steve wanted to, but he didn't. With a sigh, to the warmth of Bucky's fingers still resting upon his shoulder, he slipped into sleep.

* * *

It was quiet.

Not forebodingly so, nor even utterly silent. It hummed with a clinical throbbing reminiscent of a doctor's studio though without the white walls, vinyl floors, and tables of scalpels and gauze. Instead, minimalistic desks and seats turned towards the computer monitors depicting anatomical illustrations in vivid orange on black font spread across every wall. Throughout the room, a sparse scattering of machines of an indiscernible nature, milling doctors and nurses, and…

The cryotank.

Bucky didn't like medical studios. He didn't like anything medical all that much, for that matter. Too many memories arose at the sight of a white lab coat, the semi-reclined chairs, the headpieces with cables, or machines with too many buttons. He didn't like the smell that always lathered the air, the sterility and sharpness, the strange, indefinable tang that seemed to embody the objectivity of clinic workers. Bucky didn't like any of it, would give anything to never see a medicine-laden syringe again.

But he didn't object. He never objected. That much Bucky couldn't shake, no matter how much Steve's presence coaxed old memories and long-forgotten behaviours to the fore. Some things not even the Memory-Suppressing Machine could shake.

Bucky would always hate hospitals, but he didn't object. He couldn't.

As he sat perched upon the elevated medical table at the very centre of the room, right beside the cryotank, he held his tongue. At first, the moment he'd regained the strength to swallow the pain in his body he was buffeted by the urge to spring into flight. It had taken the duel companionship of both Steve and King T'Challa to afford him the presence of mind not to break into break out of the nearest window.

Mostly Steve, though. It had mostly been because of Steve.

The urge was still there, the prospect of experimentation and frantic, unconscious demand of "what will they do?" booming strongly in Bucky's mind, but he could ignore it now. The tension hadn't left him entirely, but it was smothered. Bucky had decided. He'd made his decision long ago, but now it was finally set into motion.

It would be better for everybody if… It will just be easier if…

Steve crossed the room slowly, hands in pockets and glancing over his shoulder towards the doctor he'd only just been conversing with. In what Bucky recognised from his own attentiveness as a compulsively scan of the room, an unshakeable readiness to spring into action, Steve drew his gaze around the monitors, to the figures seated before them studiously averting their own attention from Bucky and Steve both in a way that seemed somehow natural. When he paused before Bucky, his gaze took a moment to settle.

Bucky attempted to smile. It didn't last long, and he thought it likely it was a feeble effort. Such an expression still felt strange on his face, but he tried nonetheless. For Steve. Anything to shake that stony, shadowed cast from his face.

It didn't make much of a difference. The shadow still remained. "You sure about this?" he asked quietly.

Another attempt at a smile failed just as much as the first. "I can't trust my own mind," Bucky said. He met Steve's gaze but couldn't hold it for long. Not when he looked like that. He swallowed. "So until they figure out how to get this stuff outta my head, I think going back under is the best. For everyone."

In many ways, it was relieving to finally voice his decision. It made them more solid, more committed. It would be better for everyone. He couldn't trust his own mind; T'Challa, in a complete one-eighty of his previous antagonism, appeared to have made it his mission to remedy whatever fucked up shit still made mince-meat of Bucky's brain. Not the compulsions, perhaps, and not the behaviours, because Bucky didn't think anything would change that. It was who he was. What he'd become.

But the rest of it? The other bit? Even the thought of what had happened with Zemo, the words chanted in harsh tones and shaking him to his core as he struggled to suppress the urge to succumb, turned Bucky's gut. He didn't want to consider that. He didn't want to think about losing himself to those goddamn words even one more time. He hated it. Hated himself. Hated everything about it what went on in his head. But more recently, so unexpectedly that he didn't even understand what it was at first, Bucky had grown to realise something. Something profound and unexpected that made his guilt nearly overwhelming.

He didn't want to die. God, it was an injustice to the world, but he didn't want to die. The 'why' didn't matter, didn't factor in at all but… Bucky didn't want to die.

So this was better. It would be better for everyone if he went back under, Steve included, because if he didn't he would have to be stopped, and Steve would have to be the one to do it. Bucky spared a glance over his shoulder towards the cryotank, and the discomfort that arose at the sight of it was pitted against the resurgence of a feeling of relief.

It would be better for Bucky, too. At least for now. At least until everything was fixed. Bucky hated going under, but at least there he was safe. At least he couldn't do anything anymore, couldn't kill anyone, and couldn't be ordered to kill anyone. Bucky didn't want to kill anymore. He vehemently didn't want to, and though that had never mattered before, had never mattered what he wanted... If just this once he could avoid what made him inhuman, what twisted him into something even more dirty, even more stained…

In many ways, escaping Steve and his goodness, the goodness and purity that had been a part of him for as long as Bucky had known him, would be a relief. Even if it hurt to consider that too.

Turning from the cryotank, Bucky struggled to meet Steve's eyes once more. Steve was watching him, his brow crinkled in what wasn't a frown but something else that a niggling whisper at the back of Bucky's mind recognised as resigned sorrow. He'd folded his arms across his chest in what seemed more like he was hugging himself than planting an objectionable stance.

Even in sadness, however, Steve would always cut a figure that Bucky couldn't ignore. It was more than just the draw of his imposing figure – the strong planes of his face, the breadth of his shoulders, and the tapering of his waist visible beneath the casual jacket and jeans that on anyone else would have appeared perhaps too casual in their clinical setting. It was more than the physical presence of largeness. It would always be larger than that; Bucky had known since they were kids that Steve was something special. No matter how small, he would always be noticed. He would always be special.

It lay in the unwavering determination in his eyes.

It was apparent in the lift of his chin, the set of his shoulders, the press of his lips together that even when he faced an opponent a foot taller than him would have them second guessing themselves for just a moment.

It was in the sincerity of his words, always sincere, that carried the ring of truth even when in jest or half-heartedness.

And it was in the way he would smile. The way his eyes could seem to brighten and his whole face shift into amusement, or affection, or tenderness.

Steve wasn't smiling now. He hadn't for days. Bucky could tell any thoughts of amusement had all but abandoned him. There wasn't even a hint of a smile, not the barest beginning of quirking lips or the slight crinkling of eyes. It was almost as though he couldn't smile.

Bucky regretted that. Even when mournful, Steve had something of a perfect smile. He could recall it from the times they'd visited the graves of Joseph and Sarah Rogers all those years ago, a memory that had only so recently resurfaced in Bucky's mind. Now it was as though he couldn't even manage to summon that much. That it was Bucky's fault – he regretted that even more, despite that all of it, the entirety of it, was for the best. It made him long to do something, anything, to make it better. Anything to make him smile like he used to what seemed like centuries ago in downtown Brooklyn.

Bucky didn't like to touch people. More than that, he didn't like others to touch him. The urge to spin and strike, to grab offending fingers and snap in half was compulsive. It had been so long since anyone had touched Bucky in anything less than a blow, or to prod with a needle or position him to better strap him down to an operating table.

No one but Steve, that was. The brief moments in which Steve had clasped Bucky on the shoulder, when he'd squeezed just slightly in a way that seemed to speak a thousand words, had felt different. Painful in a way that didn't really hurt, and that Bucky hadn't been able to comprehend at first. It swelled with feeling in his chest, impossible to ignore, and fastened Bucky's eyes upon Steve even when he struggled.

There wasn't the same urge to throw Steve away. Not like everyone else. Somehow, Steve was – had always been – different.

The memory of that, alongside Steve's apparent inability to smile, was what urged Bucky to raise his hand to Steve's shoulder. The urge was almost as compulsive as so many other's that arose within Bucky, but this one was different. Better. Cleaner, and less corrupt. He settled his hand upon the junction between Steve's shoulder and neck, resting his fingers gently. It was a strange feeling, to touch someone without destruction. Strange, and bad-good, but not horrible. Not laden with the demanding need to stop.

Steve seemed to crumple with Bucky's awkward touch. His brow crinkled, face tightening, and he closed his eyes for just a moment as his own hand rose to press Bucky's fingers. The touch was warm, and though Bucky couldn't help but flinch slightly, the need to draw away didn't arise.

It was… soft. Gentle. Clean.

"Not everybody," Steve finally murmured in reply to Bucky's words, opening his eyes to affix Bucky with a stare that could have hypnotised a crowd of watchers. Bucky didn't stand a chance. Just for a moment he was lost in a stupor so couldn't at first discern what Steve was talking about. When he did, guilt resurfaced once more.

Steve… You bastard, don't do this to me.

Bucky had to go under. He knew he did. He wasn't safe to anyone, and least of all Steve. He was a burden, and one that Steve couldn't be weighed down by. Not now, and maybe not ever. But fuck, he was making it hard. The unspoken request, the unvoiced words, seemed to tug at every one of Bucky's memories that were arising more and more thickly the longer he spent around Steve. They vanquished the silence, the listlessness, and the confusion that had been a constant companion when Bucky was nothing but an asset.

He closed his eyes. It was that or risk caving to Steve's request and foolishly following what was exactly half of Bucky's desires. He focused his attention upon the hum thrumming throughout the room, the doctors and monitors murmuring around him, the snick of a door closing as someone left and the footsteps of their retreat. He latched onto the feeling of Steve's fingers, their warmth always reassuring and strong even when his body was weak. That was a constant, something that Bucky clung to as a figment of a forgotten time. It called forth memories of Brooklyn, of before the war, of two kids wandering home from school with arms slung over one another's shoulders…

"Do you remember back in Brooklyn, Bucky?" Steve murmured, as though he'd heard Bucky's thoughts. "Remember that first year after my mom died? On the anniversary when…?"

Steve trailed off, leaving Bucky's memories to unfold for themselves. And they did. Slowly, tentatively, like a flower unfurling. Bucky frowned as they arose, as something… something…

The feeling of Steve's fingers, of his other hand settle upon Bucky's neck just as Bucky had moments before, startled him slightly. He couldn't suppress a flinch, but for some reason he didn't want to shrink from the touch either. Steve was like that; it was nigh impossible to draw away from him, even had Bucky had wanted to. And for once, for the first time in decades…

When Steve continued, Bucky finally opened his eyes. "It doesn't matter if you don't," Steve said. "Because I do. For now, at least, I'll remember for both of us. I just…" He took a slow, deep breath. He still wasn't smiling, looked closer to tears or an angry outburst, but neither erupted. Instead, Steve took a step closer to Bucky until Bucky could almost feel his breath on his face. "I'm sorry if you don't want to remember. And I'm sorry if it hurts. But just this once… once more…"

Bucky didn't know what Steve was talking about. Even if that niggling at the back of his mind urged him towards understanding, he couldn't remember. Bucky paid it no mind, however, couldn't spare it his attention when Steve leant towards him and, in a gesture so unexpected yet so absolutely lacking in aggression that Bucky couldn't even flinch, pressed their lips together.

A kiss.

Steve was kissing him.

Steve was –

It was brief. The touch of warm lips that trembled just slightly, the softness of something so foreign, withdrew into a huff of breath upon Bucky's lips. He was frozen, was staring, and he couldn't have said anything had he the words to speak. Bucky was left staring up at Steve as he blinked with head slightly tucked. He immobilised by Steve's proximity, by the clasp of Steve's hand upon his neck, the tingle on his lips. That wasn't –

That wasn't –

Steve shouldn't be –

What?

For the first time in a long time - so long that it perhaps had never happened - Bucky felt utterly confused for reasons entirely devoid of anger, removed from frustration or fear. Steve had… But didn't he…? What was…?

It didn't make sense. Not to Bucky, and not at that moment. He couldn't withhold the upwelling of guilt that rose within him that he'd allowed the kiss, and that it was wrong. Wrong in so many ways, and more than just that men weren't supposed to kiss one another, because Bucky had always been told that growing up. That much he could remember, if much else was lost.

This was worse, because it was Bucky he'd kissed, and Steve who should barely be touching him but had done… he'd done that.

Confusion seemed to override every other thought. Such foreign intimacy of the likes Bucky hadn't shared with anyone for he didn't even know how long. It was too close, too gentle, too much, and so, so wrong, but at the same time Bucky couldn't help but lose himself in the brief thought, the passing possibility. He shouldn't, but…

Steve was peering down at him, his hand still clasping Bucky's neck and his eyes so soft it was only the absence of tears themselves that distinguished them from the act of crying. He still wasn't smiling, either. Bucky noticed, because he couldn't help but stare at Steve's lips. Had he ever even considered doing that before? In the past, had he but simply couldn't remember?

For the first time, Bucky felt entirely out of his depth. He couldn't attack this confusion. He couldn't escape the situation with violence. It wouldn't work. And besides, even had he been able to, he didn't want to. The pressure of Steve's fingers on his neck wasn't comfortable, exactly, still sent sparks of discomfort down every nerve that prickled his skin, but Bucky didn't want to shake it off. Just as he couldn't bring himself to drop his own fingers from Steve's shoulder. He simply didn't want to; against every demand of his body, he...

"I don't…" he began, and couldn't manage more.

"It's alright," Steve murmured. There was a touch of something that could have been an apology in his voice, but Bucky wasn't sure. Was that what apology sounded like without the 'sorry'? "You don't have to remember. But thank you."

Bucky blinked up at him. Remembering? No, that wasn't what he'd meant to ask. Not even slightly. "No, I – thank you? For -?"

"For not pushing me away," Steve said. His face tightened at his own words, and in a motion that was as slow as it was deliberate, he dropped both his hands to his sides, drawing Bucky's fingers from his shoulder as he did. "I know it was too much to ask. I just had to. Before the opportunity was lost for good. It was selfish of me."

Bucky wanted to tell him no. He wanted to say that it wasn't selfish, that Steve couldn't be selfish as he didn't have a single self-centered bone in his body. That he was allowed to do whatever the hell he wanted, even if the rest of the word thought it was wrong. Even if Bucky knew that it – a kiss, a touch, a smile that meant something the same – was wrong for more than the fact that they were both men. He knew that, even as he knew at the same time that there couldn't possibly be anything wrong because it was Steve.

Steve couldn't be wrong. Not like that.

Bucky couldn't say as much, however. He couldn't voice the words even if he wanted to. His gaze dropped to Steve's hands as his thumbs hooked almost dejectedly in his pockets once more. How was it possible to feel such relief but also such regret that Steve had let go of him?

Before Bucky could say anything, however, a vaguely familiar doctor stepped to Steve's side and drew their mutual attention. Steve turned to him attentively, as though clinging to the distraction. Bucky tried to listen - he really did - but as the forgetfulness welled into distress, suppressed only by the soothing resignation at what was to come, he couldn't seem to shake the thought from his mind. The thought of Steve, of his words and what they meant, and how Bucky wanted to know what he 'didn't remember' but wouldn't get the chance to try. He didn't have the time anymore.

The doctor urged him towards the cryotank with a gesture and a word. Bucky could only stare, could only glance briefly once more towards Steve and his hooded expression, the absence of his smile, before following the direction. He fought the urge to flinch and withdraw from the familiar pressure of straps clamped upon his arms, shrink the flatness against his back as he settled in semi-recline. Finally. He would finally… Until it was all gone he could…

Bucky spared a final glance for Steve in the moment before the thick glass of the capsule hissed around him, trapping him from the world. Steve's expression, that slight crinkling of his brow and the tearless crying, was what rose into the darkness of his closed eyelids as Bucky blotted out the artificial brightness of the world. That -

And the memory. Like a slowing rising tide, the memory of the kiss of moments before welled, but alongside that, another. A memory of long ago, hazy and vaporous.

Oh. So that's what he was talking about, Bucky thought with a sigh. He lost himself to the sudden gust of freezing burn, a thought of regret drawn forth. It lingered within him, growing and intertwining with satisfaction for the recollection and a further regret.

That he hadn't told Steve that he recalled that much at least - it was a pity. Regret was the last thought Bucky registered before it all simply – stopped.

* * *

A/N: Hi everyone! I hope you've enjoyed the story so far. I know it says 'the end', but I feel like it's just necessary to make a break as Part 1 and Part 2 can be largely read as independent works. If you liked what you've read or have anything to say, please leave a review if you get the chance! I'll be posting the first chapter of Part 2: 'Clasping Fingers' hopefully in a couple of days.

Thanks again for sticking around!


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